Home for the Holidays by Elladan son of Elrond
by Claudi007
Summary: Having recovered from his summer, Elladan returns to Rivendell just in time to meet up with the Fellowship of the Ring. Now complete. Sequel to "How I Spent My Summer Vacation". Followed by "The Elladan Show"
1. Default Chapter

_Note: Balathin and Fiommereth are rough equals to our Halloween and Christmas..._

* * *

  
  
  
October 24th 

I am ready to admit my defeat. I don't care what anybody says or thinks about the whole tabloid thing. I can't take any more of this rustic adventuring. 

For the past seven weeks, I have (as according to plan), been driving about on obscure mountain roads with Elrohir, killing Orcs, taking their wallets, and using the plunder to pay for second-rate motel rooms 10 miles downhill from failing ski resorts. However, I have had enough. The last motel we stayed in had no shower curtain or hot water. The one before that had odd stains on the carpet. The one before that had a sleazy pub that played the same Roxette tape in a continuous loop all night. 

Also, Elrohir has a bladder the size of a walnut. Stopping at an Esso every two hours for him to use the gents' toilet really isn't practical when we're supposed to be on this great mission to kill Orcs. He spends more time peeing than killing, and I spend more time waiting for him. It doesn't help that at every Esso stop he buys a two-litre bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. So we're ready to admit defeat and head home. I'm thoroughly ready to sleep in a bed that doesn't have springs sticking up in awkward spots, and contemplate the deeper meaning of my pillow. Or three pillows, maybe. That would be bliss. 

Elrohir is driving right now, and we are approaching the valley from the north-east. 

23-32: I change the tape in the stereo to This Mortal Coil.   
23-34: Elrohir changes the tape back to Kinky Boyz, and almost hits a pylon on the side of the road when he looks down for the eject button.   
23-50: I can see the purple glow of Rivendell.   
00-28: We stop at an Esso station. Elrohir takes a whiz.   
00-33: Elrohir gets me to unscrew the lid of his Diet Dr. Pepper bottle and hold it at a precise angle while he drinks.   
00-34: There is Diet Dr. Pepper all over the dash. It's not my fault- Elrohir can't drink fast enough.   
01-02: We just passed a sign that says "Welcome to Rivend ll". Someone seems to have stolen that last wooden E.   
01-16: Elrohir got stuck in the middle lane and missed our exit on the freeway.   
01-44: We are home. 

There seem to be far more cars than usual parked along the pavement and in the driveway. So either dad's having some sort of midlife crisis and couldn't settle for just one new car, or there's a party going on. Elrohir thinks party, since some of these license plates are from pretty far away. The one parked in front of us is from Gondor. 

Half the lights in the house seem to be on, and there is loud drunken singing coming from somewhere. Elrohir and I have obviously come at a bad time. I think the best course of action would just be to sneak into the house and go straight to bed, and try to figure things out in the morning. 

October 25th 

I am on the sofa. I tried to sneak into the house last night and go straight to bed, and it all worked fine until the actual getting into bed part. I had undressed and brushed me teeth and everything, but when I got into bed I discovered that it was occupied by a Hobbit. 

Actually I didn't realise it was a Hobbit right away- I first assumed that it was a child belonging to someone at the party. But it still startled me, and I jumped up and yelled, and the Hobbit started yelling, and then Elrohir came charging down the corridor shouting that there was a Hobbit in his bed too, and it was all very loud and confusing. Then Elrohir's Hobbit came running in and started hitting Elrohir with a broom and yelling, "Run, Mr. Frodo!" Mr. Frodo didn't run, but he did fall out of my bed and scramble toward the corner of the room, knocking a lamp onto the floor and adding to the chaos. 

At this point, while Elrohir tried to grab the broom from his Hobbit, two others ran in, yelling and brandishing large hairbrushes. About five more minutes of confusion and terror and breaking things passed before one of them thought to turn on the lights. Then Elrohir's Hobbit said, "You're Elves!" to which Elrohir replied, "Of course we are, we live here! What did you think we were?!" 

All four Hobbits at the same time said, "Ringwraiths." They are obviously in need of some education if they can't tell the difference between Ringwraiths (who tend to wear large black draping things with hoods) and Elrohir and I (who were wearing naught but our underoos). Luckily for them, dad is holding some sort of council seminar thing today about Mordor and other business, so maybe they will learn a thing or two. 

Of course I am not invited to this council, so I had to learn about it accidentally. Dad came into the television room this morning looking for his shirt (Elrohir and I obviously missed a wild party), saw me (Elrohir was still asleep), and said, "Oh, you're back- I need to talk to you later." And that was that. A very warm and loving welcome home indeed. 

He came back half an hour ago for what I assumed was the talking-to, but all he did was ask me to have a look at a speech he's going to be giving at his council. Part of the speech included: "The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade. It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came." I tried to point out that "from whence" is redundant, as "whence" in fact means "from where", but he rolled his eyes and said, "I think I know what the word means, Elladan." Psh. He thinks he's so smart just because he's been studying lore for over six thousand years! Obviously prepositions aren't included in that general "lore" theme. 

Later: Glorfindel, leaving the council with dad, was overheard to have said, "'Back into the fiery chasm *whence* it came', Elrond, you stuck an extra 'from' in there." Dad was overheard to have said, "Shut up." Legolas, who is back here again for some reason, was overheard to have said, "That was the coolest speech ever!" One can guess who dad will favour for the rest of the week. 

October 26th 

The Hobbit, that is Frodo, that is Mr. Frodo Baggins, that is Ring Bearer Extraordinaire, is still staying in my bed. Elrohir's bed is occupied by a Mr Samwise Gamgee. Elrohir asked dad if maybe the Hobbits could share my room and he and I could share his room, but dad proclaimed that to be completely out of the question; he wouldn't treat the Hobbits with such poor hospitality as to make them share a bed. They looked a bit disappointed. 

So Elrohir's off scouting the neighbourhood for a flat we might live in for the next little while, as neither of us is too keen on the sofa in the television room. I'm staying at home ready to claim a bedroom in case one of the five thousand guests leaves. But in doing so (patrolling the corridors looking for any suspicious packing activity), I met a nice young Man from Gondor; he owns the Sunfire parked in front of mine and Elrohir's Topaz. His name is Boromir. He swears a lot, but is generally tolerable. He doesn't seem to like Aragorn much, but I can live with that. I'm none too fond of Aragorn myself after he so callously abandoned me at that motel in Rohan. 

I also met up with Galdor, but he ignored me completely. I think he's still upset over my not going back to uni, resulting in his not being able to afford both the rent and his tuition and having to drop out. Some people get upset over the most trivial things. 

October 27th 

I spent the day with Boromir, showing him around the house and yard and avoiding Legolas, who I'm sure has at least fifty hours worth of stories to tell me from the summer. Boromir and I made sandwiches and sat on the roof for a while, watching the Dwarves down on the patio having a shin-kicking contest. Apparently shin-kicking is a very popular sport among the Dwarves. They go one on one and the first to concede due to pain loses. 

Nobody has made any mention of the Enquirer cover. My guess is that the story came as too much of a shock and they've all repressed the memory. Which is good- saves me having to explain things. 

October 28th 

This morning dad announced that we (by "we" he meant me, Elrohir, Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas, and all the entourage that came with the abovementioned plus others) ought to go out patrolling the countryside and trying to gather information on Sauron and the Ring. "We" were about to grudgingly go, but Glorfindel suggested that maybe a more effective course of action, given the horrendous petrol prices these days, might be to go to the library, read newspapers, watch pirated satellite telly from Mordor, and surf the internet for information. Dad thought about this for a moment, and then agreed. He must've known I was planning on charging the petrol to his Visa. 

Everyone sounded very enthusiastic, and then they all immediately went off to do their own things. Glorfindel said he was going to go look up something in a Magazine he remembered seeing last week, but half an hour later I saw him wandering around outside playing that lame worm game on his mobile. Elrohir said he was going to do a search for "One Ring" on Google, but got distracted and started looking up available flats in the online classifieds. Then he said he had to go to the biff, and he's been in there for nearly forty minutes now. So no luck anywhere. 

I am far to busy trying to remove a sliver from my toe to do any research right now, but as soon as the sliver is removed I'm sure I'll get right to it. 

October 29th 

Glorfindel took his Lexus in to the shop today, on account of how it's neither sounding nor running very well at all. He came back looking rather pale. I asked him what's wrong, and he said that things haven't been right ever since he drove recklessly across the old Bruinen ford (missed the bridge by 200 meters) with Frodo Baggins in the back seat, trying to outrun the Nazgûl gang. The car needs new tyres, shocks, and transmission, plus brakework and some paint along the bottom. He's considering sending the bill to Aragorn, as it was Aragorn who rang for a lift after his van broke down in the Trollshaws. 

I asked Aragorn why he got Glorfindel to come to his aid instead of Arwen, who drives that big SUV, which is much better suited for fording rivers than a luxury sedan. But Aragorn just gave me an exasperated look and said, "Because that would just be wrong!" 

Now Glorfindel's taken dad's Mazda and gone with Elrohir to the Eastpoint Mall to drown his sorrows in rayon. As far as I can tell, Glorfindel wears only rayon. Also as far as I can tell, both he and Elrohir *should* be following dad's assignment and checking up on the Ring and/or Mordor info, as should everyone else. But apparently this Ring activity has taken second place. Even Boromir, who was really keen to start off, has gone to the cinema with Legolas, leaving me to study Mordor all on my own! And I will, just as soon as I beat Elrohir's new pinball score. 

October 30th 

From the look of the kitchen counter, dad decided to stop by Superstore after work today and pick up two hundred over-packaged bags of Balathin treats to hand out to obnoxious costumed children tomorrow night. I was hoping he'd get good candy of the brand-name chocolate variety, but alas I only found peanuts. He seems to have severely overestimated childrens' fondness for non-sugary treats. 

There were also three pumpkins: two reasonably-shaped ones, and then one other that was shaped rather like a pear, but with a rounded snout-like protrusion on one side. Elrohir immediately chose that one as his. He just finished carving it, and it has twelve eyes, seven mouths, and sequins. 

Arwen chose the more perfect of the two remaining, and carved it into a smiling happy face with a flower and two hearts on the back. I gave mine to Legolas, and he didn't know what to do since they don't celebrate Balathin in Mirkwood. But he somehow managed to carve out two very small eyes (which looked suspiciously as if they'd been poked in with a pencil) and a large nose that was accidentally connected to its off-centre mouth. The accidental connection was fixed with masking tape. Then the top of the pumpkin was sort of collapsing in on itself because Legolas decided to carve it some hair. All in all I'm sure a monkey could have done better, but dad proclaimed it to be a wonderful first effort, and put it out on the front step for everyone to see. Surely he must know that the masking tape is a fire hazard? 

I stole one of the packs of peanuts while he wasn't looking, and the back said "May contain traces of peanuts or other nuts." I should hope so! 

October 31st (Balathin) 

Dad finally came to have his talk with me, the one he wanted to have six days ago. I pretended to pay attention while he voiced his disapproval for my behaviour since the beginning of August. At one point I asked why he wasn't lecturing Elrohir as well, and he told me I was missing the point of his talking-to. I said no, I understood the point completely- he wanted me to be more responsible. All of his talking-tos are about responsibility. He said, "Well... make sure you are!" I promised I would try. 

I wonder if being responsible means telling him Elrohir and I are going to a rave tonight and won't be home to hand out peanuts to trick-or-treaters like he asked us to do? 

November 2nd 

Dad is furious, but at least the blame is not on me. He is, in fact, furious with Erestor and Glorfindel. Ha! It is all their fault we've been missing for two days. I think they should get a responsibility lecture. 

Erestor and Glorfindel came to the rave with us. If I'd have known this I might've stayed home, since things are still somewhat difficult between Erestor and me. But Erestor was driving us in his Tempo, and he was wearing a sailor costume. Glorfindel, sitting in the back seat, was looking quite piratey with a plastic budgie sewn to the shoulder of his shirt and an eye patch. He was also looking surly because Aralindë opted to go trick-or-treating with her school friends instead of coming to the party with us, but the mood suited his costume. Elrohir sat next to him in the back seat and called him "Surly G" all night. Elrohir himself was wearing some sort of shiny pink vinyl trousers, silver platform boots, a glittery blue feather boa, a silver lace shirt, and fishnet gloves. I have no idea what he was supposed to be, but he had a cheap blond wig on top of it all. Next to him, I felt pleasantly plain and inconspicuous in my cheap vampire cape and fangs. 

I was forced to sit next to Erestor in the front for the whole drive up to this old barn north of town. He said nothing to me and I said nothing to him. We silently listened to the radio while Glorfindel in the back said things like, "You know, Elrohir, the Vanyar as a whole tend to wear more conservative clothing." 

The rave itself was uneventful, as Elrohir soon disappeared into a massive crowd of writhing maniacs with glowsticks and Glorfindel took off to casually stroll about and look for shady youths selling pipeweed. Erestor mainly stayed near the alcohol line and looked horribly out of place. I wandered around feeling out of place myself, but soon a girl with pink rabbit ears grabbed my arm and pulled me over to get a glow-in-the-dark design painted onto my hand. I think her name was Filleth, but I'm not entirely sure; it was hard to hear when the music was so loud it made my clothes vibrate. 

After a while Glorfindel came and sat next to me and got painted on. He looked substantially less piratey with PLUR written in glowing yellow letters across his cheek, but he was quite mellow by that point and didn't seem to care. Around three o'clock he fell asleep on a pile of Filleth's stuffed animals. I must've fallen asleep too, since I woke up some time later snuggled between Glorfindel and Elrohir, with Erestor's shoulder on my knees, Filleth's arm under my head, and three of her friends nearby. It was six a.m. and the security fellow was coming around to break up our cuddle puddle and tell us to go home. 

We managed to get less than a third of the way back to Rivendell before Erestor's car stalled and refused to start again. Luckily we were all so tired we didn't much care, so Glorfindel and I pushed the car to the side of the road and we fell asleep for a few hours. When I woke up Erestor had gotten out to look under the hood with a bewildered sort of expression on his face. Then he got back in, and tried to start it again with no luck. We sat being clueless for a while before Elrohir and Glorfindel started to make up a song that went something like: 

Elrohir: If I had a million dollars-   
Glorfindel: We wouldn't have to drive a Ford,   
Elrohir: And if I had a million dollars-   
Glorfindel: We'd drive a Lexus 'cause it costs more,   
Elrohir: And if I had a million dollars-   
Glorfindel: Maybe we could put a little tiny cell phone in there somewhere... 

At this point Erestor yelled at them to shut up and think of something helpful to do instead of just being jerks. He is terribly fond of his car and won't tolerate anyone mocking it. He went back out to look under the hood again and I'm fairly sure I saw him lovingly pat the radiator. 

It took us an hour to convince Erestor to leave the car, and another seven to walk back to town. We made to the donut shop in the far north end, which was just opening for the morning, before Elrohir demanded we stop for a rest. He quickly fell asleep across the orange formica table and nearly knocked Glorfindel's coffee combo into my lap. The rest of us sat in a mindless daze watching the donuts get stale until Glorfindel suddenly got the bright idea to use the pay telephone to ring for a taxi. 

So we are back home now. I would like to go to bed and stay there for twelve hours, but Mr. Baggins is still here. So I will have to settle for occupying the tub and the inflatable bath pillow, and hope I don't accidentally drown in twelve inches of water. 

November 3rd 

Stayed in bed (that is, the hide-a-bed) all day. Elrohir went out around noon and came back with poorly-made peanut butter sandwiches an hour later, so that was good. He couldn't find the Playstation, so had to settle for playing Nintendo while I remembered I was too tired to do anything. 

Dad came round after supper to make sure we weren't dead or horribly traumatised or anything. He stayed and had a chat for about eleven seconds before going back to doing whatever it is he does when I'm not watching. 

Elrohir figures that's probably Legolas. 

November 4th 

Erestor had his car towed to the shop to get fixed up. Glorfindel's been having a go at him all evening, asking why he doesn't just buy a new car since the Tempo ends up at the mechanic's at least three times per year. But Erestor got all defensive and yelled that he was perfectly happy with his car, rust spots and cracked tail light and broken radio and all, and that the seats are very comfortable besides. More argument followed, until the two decided to go settle their dispute the old-fashioned way, by typing "Lexus" and "Ford" into Google and seeing which came up with more hits. 

Ford won 14,4 million to 1,9. Then Glorfindel sniffed and said that the numbers only meant his car was more exclusive. Erestor clicked on the Lexus homepage and pointed out that the ES 300 is the best-selling luxury sedan in Eriador, while nobody buys Ford Tempos any more. So really, the Tempo is more exclusive. Glorfindel narrowed his eyes and was silent for a moment before saying, "My car is nicer than yours, and cost eight times as much." Erestor left after that. 

Later, Glorfindel told me that he suspects Erestor to be a secret millionaire. Since Glorfindel does all the finances he knows how much everyone makes, and Erestor is second only to dad on the government payroll. I am shocked. I'd never have guessed this, since Erestor's car is almost as old as the Topaz, and he buys all his clothes from Zeller's. Also he has a regular old blue Visa card like mine, while Glorfindel has a platinum Visa. I suppose I've always supposed that Glorfindel was paid more, since Glorfindel never misses an opportunity to let people in on the fact that he has adequate money. But apparently Glorfindel's flashiness is all just a façade. 

November 5th 

Now that both Glorfindel's and Erestor's cars are out of commission, and since they refuse to take public transit to work, Glorfindel has broken down and hired a car from Spiffy Auto Services. Unfortunately, the most exotic thing Spiffy had available was a Kia. So Glorfindel wears dark glasses and makes Erestor drive. 

November 6th 

Erestor's car is back from the shop. He waved the bill around for a while last night and made a point of showing Glorfindel three times. Glorfindel's car may cost eight times as much as Erestor's, but his repair bill will be more like fifteen. Glorfindel is not looking well at all. 

He looked even less well this morning when he suddenly remembered that today is the day he and Erestor are supposed to go to Rivendell High School's career fair to try and con youths into working for the government once they graduate. He begged dad to switch cars with him for today, as the prospect of showing up at Aralindë's school in either a rusty Ford Tempo or a Kia with "Spiffy!" painted on the side in ten-inch-high orange letters was enough to make him pale and shaky. But dad seemed to have little regard for Glorfindel's vanity, and insisted that he needed his own car today for special government parking purposes. 

I tried to assure Glorfindel that Aralindë would understand about his car being in the shop, but he kept making sad, worried noises. He tried to convince me that he's worried about the students mistakenly believing that the government pays so poorly its employees have to drive clapped-out old rust buckets, but I know he's secretly terrified he won't be able to impress the highschool girls. 

It didn't help that Erestor left the car illegally parked in front of the fire lane, and Rivendell High's Principal Lornir had to use the PA system to tell them to move it. All of Aralindë's friends now know that Erestor drives a Tempo, and that Glorfindel carpools with him. Erestor was snickering about it, so I'm suspicious that he did the illegal park on purpose. 

November 7th 

Glorfindel has his precious car back. He spent a good portion of the afternoon trying to figure out where to park it to optimise visibility while at the same time keeping it out of harm's way in the event someone should come careening down the driveway and lose control, smashing everything in sight. He ended up putting it between a maple bush (for visual effect) and Arwen's SUV (for protection). I should probably mention that Arwen has a tendency to hit, scrape, and ding things while backing up, but that would just cause him needless anxiety, so I won't. 

November 8th 

It snowed last night. It hasn't snowed in Rivendell since before I was born, but last night it snowed and the temperature made a sudden drop to below zero. I woke up this morning to Glorfindel screaming "My car!!!" So I went to peer outside, sure that Arwen had dented it while parking last night, but saw instead that Glorfindel's car, along with everything else, was covered in four inches of snow. Glorfindel was out with a broom, frantically trying to clear the windscreen. Erestor was at the front window, smirking. 

In the end they had to take the Tempo to work because the Lexus wouldn't start. I'm sure this caused some sort of falling-out, since Glorfindel came home in a taxi. Then there was a big row at the supper table with Glorfindel yelling that there hasn't been snow here since the Second Age, and how could dad let this happen? Dad shifted uncomfortably and, avoiding eye contact, said something about how since this whole thing with Sauron and the One Ring came up, he was thinking that maybe it would be a good idea not to use Vilya this year and simply let nature take its course. 

Glorfindel seems to be the only one opposed to this plan, so looks like the snow is staying. He grumbled for a good hour after supper and is now out on the driveway with a hair dryer trying to defrost his engine. 

November 9th 

More snow. The Hobbits are making a snow fort with Elrohir, Boromir and Aragorn are trying to make a snowboard jump, and all the Dwarves are happily digging for sand out back to sprinkle over the steps and walkways and improve the safety rating. Legolas is brushing the snow off of Arwen's SUV and starting it for her since she's dressed up to go shopping in a mini skirt and high heels and is too girly to do it herself. She promised to give him a bag of pretzels and all the wine gums he can eat at one sitting. 

Glorfindel's car still won't start. He was pleading with it earlier, but it doesn't seem to have listened. Erestor made a point of driving around in circles for a while to show off. 

November 11th 

3019 years ago today, Isildur cut the One Ring from the hand of Sauron. Unfortunately that's all he did, leaving us to fix up the rest of his mess all this time later, but still it's a public holiday today so I'm not complaining. 

But I will complain about the snow. It is still snowing, and it's getting a bit ridiculous, almost as if nature is making up for three millenia of snow-free winters all in one go. Boromir and Aragorn have given up their snowboard park and are back to being wary of each other. The Hobbits likewise have abandoned their tunnelling in favour of drinking cider by the fire and playing Monopoly. Only the Dwarves are still going strong at their sand mine. 

I wanted to go outside and have a look at the snow, but I couldn't find my shoes anywhere. So I sat and watched Elrohir play Super Mario 3 instead. It was almost the same- he was on World 6. 

November 13th 

On his way to work this morning, dad stopped suddenly to avoid hitting a weasel as it crossed the driveway. He lost control of the Mazda on the slippery road, fishtailed, and ended up stuck in a snow bank alongside the hedge. Since he's too proud to ask for help, it took him half an hour to get out. Elrohir and I watched from the window. We would have gone out to offer our help, but Elrohir had left his Mega Man game on pause and we didn't want to risk going too far in case somebody turned it off. 

At supper, I noticed dad was wearing Vilya again. I think the snow is on its way out. 

November 14th 

Temperatures are back up to normal, and everything is all mucky outside. Arwen hired Legolas to walk down to the shop and get her some hairspray, but he didn't even make it out of the yard before getting stuck in the mud, losing one of his shoes, and falling over. Really, it was his own fault for wanting to ascertain that yes, the mud puddle did indeed come up to his knees. Now he's wearing Arwen's bathrobe (not dad's- something must be horribly wrong) and playing dominoes with Gandalf while he waits for his clothes to wash. 

Elrohir and Aragorn though went outside to exploit the puddle and have a mud fight. They seem to be having fun, but I know I'd look like some sort of mindless idiot if I went to join them. So I'm going to stay in and watch dad polish his spoon collection instead. 

November 16th 

Dad asked today after the progress of our One Ring research. I realised I'd completely forgotten, and in a panic told him I'd found lots so far. He asked to see. Hoping he wouldn't know any better, I did a Google search for "Sauron One Ring" and came up with 39.800 hits. I told him I'd compiled the list myself. He was quite impressed. Then he asked Elrohir. 

Elrohir said he hadn't really done any actual research, but had drawn a really cool picture. He showed dad and I a drawing of the Ring half-melted in the fires of Mount Doom while all around Orcs were falling into lava. Dad nodded approvingly, and took the drawing to stick up on the fridge. Elrohir's working on another one, this time with more Orcs, more lava, and a few flaming skeletons. Watching him draw isn't quite as much fun as watching him play Nintendo, so I did a few rounds of pinball on the computer. I think I might be getting better. 

November 18th 

I realised today that I've been wearing naught but various forms of pyjamas (sweats, shorts, tee-shirts, fleece jumpers) since the 2nd and have spent most of my waking hours since then watching Elrohir play old Nintendo games. This has to stop. Glorfindel has already started to call Elrohir "Eltendo", and I shudder to think of what he secretly calls me, as I think I must be slightly more pathetic for only watching Elrohir play all day and never actually playing myself. 

So I got dressed in clothes I don't mind being seen in, and resolved to spend more time playing my own video games instead of just watching. I hope Elrohir doesn't mind, but it does get a bit tedious that he makes me sit out in the corridor whenever he's at a hard part in the game. He takes his Nintendo far too seriously. 

November 19th 

I was almost about to beat Elrohir's pinball high score today, but idiot Glorfindel (who has no respect for video games and the amount of concentration they require!) came in at a bad time and made me lose the ball. I almost kicked him. 

He was saying that the whole car situation has caused a rift in the space-time continuum and unravelled the laws of physics, causing irreconcilable differences to arise between him and Erestor. As a result, they can no longer be friends. And since Erestor has claimed dad as his new buddy, Glorfindel needs to find a supportive sidekick PDQ. 

I assured him I was far too busy on the computer to help team up against Erestor. I must admit the prospect did have a certain allure, but still the pinball intrusion was nigh unforgivable. I also advised him against asking Elrohir, since I could hear the Bowser music filtering out from the den, and Elrohir doesn't take video game interruptions very well. So Glorfindel is going to look up Lindir, who I know has been desperately trying to break into the clique for years and years. 

November 20th 

Some of the houseguests have finally started to leave. Unfortunately not many, but I hope that this small exodus will make the others realise that they probably have better things to do than hang about here all the time. Galdor has gone but Legolas stayed, Boromir and two other Men are still here, and all but one of the Dwarves have opted to stick around for a while longer. I think they might be trying to set up some political movement to oust the Elves from government. 

November 22nd 

Now that I'm living at home again, nobody ever sends me emails. I am bored with my pinball game, bored of solitaire, bored of freecell, bored of minesweeper, and bored of everything else. There is nothing to do. So I rearranged my desktop icons for a while, first putting them in alphabetical order, and then arranging them for ease of use according to which ones I click on most often. Then I looked through all the Windows desktop themes to find out which one is least crappy. 

After a while, overcome by extreme boredom, I sent am email to Legolas. Surely there must be more to life than this? Or has the computer failed me? 

November 23rd 

Legolas replied to the email. He must be just as bored as I am. 

-----   
From: "*Legolas*" legolas3000@royals.mk>   
Subject: Re: Anything fun happening? 

Hi Elladan! I just got back from going to a movie   
about aliens with Boromir! It was a bit scary but   
had kewl special efects! Like this one part where   
all the aliens are in their space ship and are   
about to kill the good guys but at the last minute   
they don't and everything is OK and all the aliens   
die! I bet aliens really exist you know. They   
have big eyes. Boromir thinks he saw and alien   
once but he was on drugs so maybe he only saw a   
cactus with big eyes. There aren't any cactuses   
in Mirkwood but there are shrews and the shrews   
are pretty small and have skinny tails. Once my   
dad put his beer cooler on a shrew and squished it   
by accident. He also squished a toad once but that   
was when he was digging up the peony bush with a   
big shovel. Maybe we should play dominos tonight!   
I beat Gandalf at dominos three times already. I   
played with Boromir too but he tries to cheat by   
puttin gthe dominos in his pants and I noticed this!   
So he lost and then we played again and he tried to   
put the dominos in MY pants but I noticed this too   
(duh!!! Boromir is so stupid!!!) and he lost again!   
----- 

I stopped reading at this point because the email just wasn't making any sense. I skimmed over the rest, but it seemed to be focusing predominantly on the topic of Boromir's pants. 

Luckily though Eltendo wandered over to ask why I wasn't watching him play any more (he had just beat Mega Man 3), and I was able to get him to decipher the curious babble. His analysis revealed that Legolas wants to know if we're interested in going for pizza tonight. 

November 24th 

Elrohir and I ended up going to Greasy Onor's Thick Pizza with Legolas last night. Having not left the house in three weeks, I was shocked to see that all of downtown is covered in cheap sparkley light-up Fiommereth decorations. In fact, Fiommereth seems to have exploded in the streets. Trees and stars and bells and lights and tinsel abound. The city decoration committee could at least have the decency to wait until December 1st! 

The pizza was greasy (big surprise) and Legolas and Elrohir's supper conversation left much to be desired. I think they were talking about television, since it sounded something like: 

Legolas: And did you see that other one that was on-   
Elrohir: Aw, dude, yeah! That kicked!   
Legolas: I know! Especially the part with that guy!   
Elrohir: Oh man, you mean when he did that thing with the-   
Legolas: Mm-hmm! That was *sooooo* cool!   
Elrohir: And what about that other time, in the car?   
Legolas: Yes!!! I saw that too!   
Elrohir: Straight up now tell me! That was sweet! 

I'm hesitant to admit this, but I think my brother just might be a moron. 

November 25th 

I asked dad if he noticed when all the crappy Fiommereth decorations came out downtown, and he said they were up on the 6th! Which is, in my books, far too early. I asked him if he couldn't pass a law forbidding all Fiommereth nonsense from starting before December 1st, but he said he didn't mind the decorations, and actually called them "festive"! So it is obviously his fault that the decorations come out earlier and earlier with each passing year to guilt trip us all into spending all our money and buying gifts for absolutely everyone in the world! 

Which reminds me, with only a month left until Fiommereth, I should start shopping. 


	2. Home for the Holidays 2

  
  
  
November 26th 

To protest against the unseasonable proliferation of Fiommereth décor, I have decided not to leave the television room until December 1st. Elrohir has promised to lend support by bringing me food and snacks. He also offered to play Nintendo for my entertainment. I told him it would make me happier if he started looking again for a flat for us, since living at home is quite unbearable compared to our previous independence. 

My bedroom is still occupied by Frodo Baggins, but even if it weren't I'd want to leave. Dad's façade of hospitality is getting on my nerves. He's wonderful and generous and kind to all the guests, and then makes me stay on the hide-a-bed with Elrohir for a month! Which I really wouldn't mind, if only Elrohir would spend less time on the Nintendo late at night and more time sleeping with me. 

...wait, that doesn't sound right... 

November 27th 

I have amended my vow of not-leaving to include provisions for going to the biff. I am allowed to leave the den only to visit the toilet and to brush my teeth. Elrohir insists on being my armed escort and chaperone. I almost pointed out that my imprisonment is self-imposed, but he had already armed himself with an oblong sofa cushion and the Duck Hunt gun, so I let him have his fun. 

He spoke into the DVD remote all the way to the bathroom, saying "Khhhk, transfer command, this is block leader MG-886 escorting prisoner Elladan to lavatory unit 3-b, do you copy?" Then he stepped six inches to the left and said, "Khhhk, roger block leader, this is transfer command, commence dialogue." "Khhhk, in position for security crossover- activate Code E switch to transfer setup and lockdown." "Khhhk, roger that, block leader. Security transfer success- you're free to go." 

After much elaborate undoing of invisible locks, I was given permission to pee for no more than 20 seconds. The return trip protocol was much the same, only Arwen stood and watched. Elrohir ignored her well enough until she said, "You two are *such* idiots," at which time Elrohir yelled, "Security breech!" and attacked her with the cushion. 

Her screams of outrage brought Legolas valiantly running to her rescue. Legolas started off earnestly throttling Elrohir for "being mean to girls", but within seconds the throttling turned into tickling and other generic roughhousing accompanied by squeals of laughter. Arwen, disgusted, stormed away (probably to complain to dad). I escorted myself back to the den with no further incident. 

November 28th 

I have further amended my vow to include provisions for showering. Elrohir still insisted on being my chaperone, and kept peeking behind the shower curtain to make sure I wasn't about to off myself with Arwen's Lady Gillette. 

Much to my dismay, Legolas has also joined in the "game". Mostly he just sits on the sofa watching Elrohir play Mario and taking up space and oxygen. I might have to have him "promoted" to door guard duty later tonight. Or send him for food. Elrohir's idea of supper, that is Tater Tots and root beer, is somewhat inadequate. 

November 29th 

Elrohir is nowhere to be seen. Even Legolas has disappeared. I have seen neither of them since noon, when Elrohir excitedly burst in to announce that dad and Arwen and Aragorn were putting up the tree, and did I want to help? 

They are doing this deliberately to get me to renounce my vow! But no hokey family traditions will get me to leave this room, no way! They can decorate their dumb tree all by their dumb selves. So I gave Elrohir a Look and said no, I was planning on staying in the den as I would have no part in their shamefully premature holiday preparations. He slapped his forehead and said, "Oh, right, sorry!" and then took off again. 

I hope he comes back soon. I found an old pack of the Balathin peanuts behind the telly, but it was sadly lacking in any real food value. I am still hungry. 

November 30th 

Elrohir finally came back about midnight, carrying a jar of olives. He held them up excitedly and said, "Look, your favourite food!" I really wanted to be nice about it, because I know he means well, but at that point I couldn't hold back the frustration any longer. I slightly less than calmly pointed out that I really *hate* olives. Really. I don't think he quite understands just how deep my hatred of olives goes. They are, in fact *his* favourite food, not mine, not by a long shot. 

He said, "Ohhhhhh... yeah, I remember now!" Then he sat down, turned on the Nintendo, and went ahead eating every single stupid olive in that jar! And not quickly either. No, he takes each olive one at a time, looks at it all over, and then sucks out the pimento. Then he tries to stick his tongue in the pimento hole, though of course it never fits. After that, he either tries to put the olive on his finger, or else bites off the closed end and whistles through it. Alternately, he will "oooo" though it. Often while looking at me. Finally, he eats it, but only while taking very small bites and examining the olive after every bite. Sometimes he will sing his olive song, which is pretty much "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with the words changed to "Olive, olive, olive, olive..." 

After he'd gone through five olives in this manner, I couldn't take it any more and yelled, "Elrohir!" He looked at me, frowning, and said, "Dude, what's your deal?" I told him I was hungry. He offered me an olive. It was all I could do to keep myself from screaming and dumping the jar of olives over his stupid olive-filled head. So I forced myself to be calm and lie down and just go to sleep in hope that tomorrow he'll remember that it's his job to feed me. Only I couldn't sleep, because I'm sure he turned up the volume on the television so that all I could hear was the boing boing boing of Mario jumping. And his singing to the olives got more elaborate with passing time. 

To compensate, I stole all the blankets, lay diagonally across the mattress, and pretended to be deeply asleep by the time he finished his olives and got into bed. He shook me (rather violently) eight times before giving up and sleeping curled up by my shoulder like a pet. Served him right. 

He was gone by the time I woke up this morning and I, not wanting to count on him for food, wisely stood in the den doorway and waited to flag down the first person I saw. That happened to be Glorfindel. I begged him to make me some real food- food that is hot and doesn't come straight out of a tin or a freezer bag. He came back about an hour and a half later carrying two plates of stuff I've never seen before. Some sort of mushy beany glop, what looked like meatballs but turned out to be eggplant balls, flat bread, orange-coloured fried potatoes and rice, and deep fried filo-pastryish wads drizzled in reddish sauce. 

Warily, I asked what it was, and he said "Vanyarin food- try it, it's good." As if to convince me, he ate one of the pastries from his plate. I tried a pastry, and nearly fainted when my tongue threatened to fuse itself to the roof of my mouth due to the sheer heat of the drizzly sauce. I choked, forced myself to swallow, and immediately reached for my water bottle. He said, "They're a bit spicy." A bit! Out of everything on that plate, the bread was the only thing that didn't have me breathing smoke. And all the while, Glorfindel sat calmly eating his bean glop as if it were no more dangerous than chocolate pudding! 

By this time, though, I was so hungry I didn't care. I ate everything, alternating bites with large mouthfuls of water. I suppose it might even have been good, had my tongue not been completely annihilated and had I been able to taste any of it. And it might have been a more enjoyably experience had Glorfindel not insisted that forks are a Noldorin invention that are generally shunned in Valmar. At least they were when he lived there, way back in the day. It was somewhat tricky holding the plate up to my chin and manoeuvring the bean glop toward my mouth with a piece of bread. Though he at least brought napkins to clean up the mess afterward. 

Glorfindel, for all the years I can remember, has never once cooked supper for us. Now I know why. And I will keep this experience in mind for next time, when I will ask Erestor to bring me supper. He at least is thankfully bland and would bring me something edible, like a hot dog and chips. 

December 1st 

I ceremoniously left the den this morning and stepped into the living room, only to see that Fiommereth has exploded all over everything. The tree was in its traditional space in the corner, though all bunged up with noticeably more tinsel and lights than usual. Dad seems to have opted for the Laurelin theme this year- gold foil from top to bottom. The mantle was covered in holly and pine boughs wrapped with ribbon. Fake spray snow adorned every window. More candles than one could shake a stick at were situated about the room. Overall, it looked like a picture from the sappy Fiommereth edition of Homemaker Magazine. 

So I see that my strike did nothing to hold back the tide of kitsch. If anything, it actually encouraged them because I was out of the way and unable to physically stop Arwen from Blu-Tacking glittery stars to the walls! In disappointment, I went back to the den. At least nobody has decorated in there yet. It will be my sanctuary until I'm ready to face the cheesiness of the season. 

December 2nd 

Today Arwen wrote all of her Fiommereth cards, right on schedule. Every year, she takes the time to write a card to absolutely everyone she can think of, including mum, Glorfindel, Erestor, Lindir, Aragorn, Legolas, Legolas' parents, Círdan, Galdor, Gildor, grandma, grandpa, Haldir, Rumil, Orphin, Bilbo, Gandalf, Saruman (luckily she remembered he's evil this year before she mailed his), Radagast, Halbarad, everyone else whose name she can remember, and, this year, all the Hobbits, Dwarves, and Men currently staying with us. 

Now, this might seem like a kind and wonderfully sweet thing to do, but she's not doing it to be nice. Nor is she doing it to spread Fiommereth cheer. The only reason she writes all those cards is in hope that she'll get a card in return or, better yet, a gift. On Wednesday, when all of her within-Rivendell cards will be delivered (she mails all of them even though it would surely be easier to give them out by hand), I know she will make a big show of dancing and singing her way to the fridge, where she'll magnet up her wish list. Then, just as everyone is admiring the cards and thinking what a lovely and special girl Arwen is, they will see that she has her dear blessed little heart set on a Sugar Jones CD. And lo, they will get it for her. 

Then I also know that her card should be arriving in Lórien just as grandma and grandpa are doing their shopping. So Arwen will get a big parcel full of scented bath things and chocolates and jewellery, while Elrohir and I get Wal-Mart gift cards. It never fails. But of course nobody save Elrohir and I can see that this is her clever little ploy. Feh! 

December 3rd 

I was complaining to Elrohir about Arwen's cards today, and he smugly told me he upstaged everyone by sending grandma and grandpa a super deluxe ultra glittery card that plays "Jingle Bells" when you open it, and he sent it Express Post so it'll arrive before Arwen's. 

That rat! Now he's going to get the best present, Arwen's going to get something almost as nice, and I'm going to be stuck with the crummy Wal-Mart gift card! This calls for drastic measures. I'm going shopping. 

Later: I've had grandma and grandpa's gifts professionally wrapped at the mall and sent by courier. Ha! That'll show Arwen and Elrohir. Really, I don't know what comes over those two this time of year. All they seem to care about is what sort of gifts they get and how many, completely disregarding the fact that the spirit of Fiommereth is all about giving and being with family and friends. How greedy can you get! 

December 4th 

Arwen's cards arrived in the post today, right on schedule. All through the halls, I could hear Elves saying what a thoughtful girl she is, Men singing the praises of her grace and beauty, Hobbits declaring their undying adoration, and Dwarves proclaiming her to be the one shining hope for all Elvenkind. It makes me want to kick something. 

Sure enough, around supper time she came prancing into the kitchen, singing some frilly song about peace and love and joy joy joy! and magneted her wish list (printed in bubbly letters on pink paper and decorated with stickers of flowers and happy faces) to the fridge over top of Elrohir's drawings of Orcs falling into lava. Within the hour I saw Glorfindel standing and looking at it thoughtfully, holding her stupid card in his hand. 

This is completely unfair, and is making the rest of us (namely me) look bad! I ought to petition dad to make a law against solicitous Fiommereth card sendage. 

December 5th 

Aragorn and Arwen have broken up again. He's upset over having received a card that says only, "Happy holidays and all the best in the New Year! Love, Arwen" She claims she "accidentally" must have sent his somewhat more personal card to Legolas. This evolved into a huge row about commitment, trust, respect, and Aragorn's personal hygiene and smoking habits. It ended with Aragorn storming off to get wasted, and Arwen pouting to Legolas that Aragorn is "such a meanie" sometimes. He held her hand and said things that sounded supportive but really made no sense whatsoever upon analysis. 

Dad stared at them from across the room with thin lips and narrow eyes. I suspect he might be jealous. And nervous, since Arwen is younger and prettier than he is. 

December 6th 

Arwen and Legolas are officially in love. They spent the entire day holding hands and giggling to each other and generally making everybody roll their eyes. Aragorn is disgusted. Elrohir thinks it's funny. Erestor doesn't care. Dad pretends he doesn't care, but really is devastated. Boromir looks disappointed. And Glorfindel is upset, since many years ago Arwen turned him down by saying that she's not interested in Elves, which is now obviously a lie. As for me, I think they belong together. All Arwen wants in a boyfriend is someone who will agree with everything she says, and since Legolas has the intellectual independence of a newt, I don't think that should be a problem. 

December 7th 

Elrohir got a job. This is why I've not seen him around the house for the past few days, I guess. Without warning, he up and decided that he ought to be employed, so he now works for the East Beleriand Trading Company (est. F.A. 109), generally referred to as "The Bel" by most shoppers. He gets to wear a shirt and tie and classy engraved metal nametag, and stand at the door greeting customers and directing them to the various store departments. So really, his duties consist of knowing where the underthings and toy departments are and telling people how to get there. 

Dad looked very proud indeed when Elrohir announced this, and said something about how nice it was for Elrohir to be taking initiative and being responsible and all that bosh. He was looking at me while he said it. I pretended I didn't notice. The only reason dad thinks this is so great is because Elrohir's been a disappointment for so long that he's lowered everyone's expectations! He could get hired as the chip chef at McDonald's and still dad would congratulate him. If I were to get a job greeting people at the Bel, dad would look concerned and tell me I could do better. I just know it! 

Maybe I should make a point of being stupid for the next few years so that when I do decide to apply myself, everyone will be amazed. 

December 8th 

I tried to do all my shopping today, but I was still too frustrated with everyone to be inspired to buy them nice gifts. So I bought a Roxy Music piano book for Erestor and that was all. I might come back and get him another piano book later. Right now all he knows how to play is "Aladdin Sane" and it gets a bit tedious. 

When I got home, Glorfindel was on one about the porcelain Valar setup that Elrohir always monkeys with. Elrohir claims he didn't touch it, but we all know nobody else ever rearranges the figurines so that they're all standing around adoring a walnut while Tulkas has his hand on Aulë's bum. Glorfindel lectured again on how "Fiommerel" is a sacred religious holiday to honour the birth of Eonwë and that if Elrohir insisted on disrespecting his beliefs he was going to take his precious porcelain Valar (that he so kindly bought for us because our old cardboard nativity set was substandard, don't you forget) and set them up in a locked glass case away from unholy heathen hands. 

Elrohir promised to behave. But as soon as Glorfindel left the room, I clearly saw him put Tulkas' hand back on Aulë's bum and replace the infant Eonwë with another walnut. 

December 9th 

Glorfindel has locked the porcelain Valar inside the glass teacup cabinet, displacing twelve valuable old teacups that once belonged to Turgon. This has caused some tension between Glorfindel and dad, as dad clearly has greater respect for Turgon's old dishes than for the Valar. Unfortunately the stress of the season seems to have gotten to Glorfindel and has made him go a bit psycho, and dad is afraid to say anything more than, "You know, those teacups are very old and valuable... are you sure they're safe on top of the stereo?" 

After an hour of watching them fuss over placement issues, I felt like my head was full of sand. So I gladly left the house and went shopping. I passed Elrohir at the door to the Bel, completely oblivious to the uproar he has caused at home. He was handing out 5% discount coupons to everyone who entered the store. I took one and used it to buy Glorfindel a locking glass case for his beloved porcelain Valar. 

December 10th 

Someone, I suspect dad, left the glass teacup cabinet open last night and Manwë has disappeared. Glorfindel is distraught, sitting at the kitchen table alternately raging that he's going to give somebody some serious grief and sobbing that everybody's against him because he's the only person who still recognises the true meaning of the holiday beyond the commercial monstrosity it's become. Dad sent Erestor in to try to calm him down, but he's still wary of Erestor since their car disagreement. So Erestor called for Lindir. Lindir could do nothing substantial. So he was sent to wait outside Aralindë's school until dismissal and bring her back to deal with Glorfindel. 

Meanwhile, Elrohir stood in the living room with a dopey grin on his face, prompting Legolas to whisper to me that he thinks "Elrohir maybe took the little statue". What a mind that boy has... 

At some later point Aralindë managed to convince Elrohir to put Manwë back on the shelf. He then solemnly vowed never to rearrange the Valar again. So he's now randomly turning dad's teacups upside-down and pretending a ghost did it. 

December 11th 

Legolas' dad rang today wondering what the [censored] Legolas is up to and when he's coming home. Legolas and Arwen were sitting by the fire having a moment, and I didn't want to disturb them. In fact, I didn't want to go near them. So I handed the telephone over to Glorfindel, who is the only person Thranduil will talk to in a reasonably friendly-like way. They chatted for five minutes or so until (I'm guessing) Thranduil realised it was long distance. So Glorfindel said, "I'll ring you back, then," and he did. They chatted for another half hour about everything in the world but Legolas, from the price of stamps to the least expensive brand of tinned crab available from Safeways. 

In the last minute of conversation, Glorfindel said, "Probably at least until spring, I'd think. I'll IM you tomorrow with details. But it's no bother for now, really. Don't worry about it." Then he hung up and went into the living room to tell Legolas that he wasn't expected home until June. 

Great! That's just great! And here I was all along hoping he'd be gone by now! But no, looks like I'm stuck putting up with him all winter. Maybe at least Arwen will be a decent distraction. When I last peeked in on them, she was teaching him how to make a small poinsettia cross-stitch. It has occurred to me that Arwen might not want a boyfriend after all; what she really wants is a sister. 

December 12th 

I think Glorfindel has forgiven Elrohir for the mishandling of the Valar, because they seem to be very good friends now. They're in the kitchen, standing at the blender and trying to invent a vegan substitute for egg nog. I can see a carton of milk-inspired soy beverage on the counter beside a can of Coke and a bottle of rum, which seems to work its way into 99% of Glorfindel's drinks. I just know this is going to turn into a disaster. Therefore I am not going anywhere near the kitchen until they've had ample time to clean up. Last time Elrohir was inspired to use the blender I was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time by dad and had to spend a good hour wiping cranberry puree from the cupboard doors. 

December 13th 

Elrohir has posted his list to the fridge door. I can't read most of it, but "IGUANA" seems to be printed prominently at the top in green ink. The item listed below looks like it might say "iguana cage", but I'm not sure. Four other illegible things are written below "iguana cage", then "nintendo games", then a bunch of other things that I don't even think are written in any known alphabet or language. Seeing as it's the only thing I could both read and afford, I went out to the pawn shop and bought him Legend of Zelda, Mega Man 2, Ninja Gaiden, and Bubble Bobble. I put the games in shiny holographic silver bag, which in itself should keep him amused for at least an hour. 

December 14th 

Only ten more shopping days left until Arfiommereth. I should probably start making peace with all the people I've fought with this year (namely dad and Erestor), and also start being generally nicer. 

December 15th 

I had a talk with dad today. I decided to give in and apologise for our disagreements, even though everything is clearly his fault and I wasn't even sure what I was apologising for anymore. It went very well and he gave me a hug, saying we should make a better effort at communication in the future. Then he said I should probably get around to putting my list up on the fridge, as he was planning on going shopping after work tomorrow. 

So I made the following list:   
External CD burner for computer   
Ski hat and gloves   
Well-made socks   
flannel bedsheets   
Up-to-date dictionary   
Blank VHS tapes   
Wireless mouse   
Slippers (not animal-shaped!)   
Gift certificate for book shop 

I also included a supplementary list of suggestions for cheap crap I wouldn't mind getting from Elrohir, as he never seems to do his shopping any earlier than five minutes before the convenience stores close on the 24th:   
Gummi worms   
Lemon-scented PineFresh tree for the Topaz   
Deck of cards   
Hairbrush   
Film for camera   
Cheetos 

December 16th 

I wanted to make peace with Erestor today, but he didn't come home from work until after nine. I am now worried that he's already done his shopping and my peace-making will be too late. Bugger. And he always buys really good presents, too. He seems to have made peace with Glorfindel, though, because I saw them talking together, and it wasn't an argument over their cars. 

December 17th 

After too many weeks of guests, dad has finally decided that Frodo's three Hobbit friends will be accompanying Frodo to Mordor, along with a few others. I pointed out that maybe it might be better if Elrohir and I went instead of Merry and Pippin, we being somewhat more experienced in this whole travelling-questing business. He said that could be arranged if I thought it was best, and then said that the others travelling would be Aragorn, Boromir, Gandalf, Gimli, and Legolas. 

On second thought, I think it might be more beneficial for Elrohir and I to stay home. Dad needs us here, after all. 

So dad had a party to announce the formation of the Fellowship of the Ring. We all sat around on the deck and ate barbequed hotdogs and drank egg nog. Elrohir and Glorfindel, though, came up with their experimental corn nog to add to the festivities. I didn't ask, but it appeared to be made out of creamed corn and Coke. I'm sure Elrohir has the recipe written in his Nog Log. He's been keeping track of all the various nogs he's had since the beginning of the month, as well as what he put in them. 

Everything was going well enough until Arwen came to sit next to Legolas, carrying a plate with three hot dogs on it. Legolas' eyes widened and he said, "She's eating hot dogs like how many I eat hot dogs!" Arwen (who obviously has better luck deciphering his babble than I do) scowled and said, "Are you insinuating that I eat too much?!" but Legolas could only point and say, "Three hot dogs!" 

Thoroughly insulted, Arwen stood up in a storm of dramatic sighs and said to dad, "He thinks I'm fat!" Dad had his mouth too full of rice pudding to reply, but luckily Aragorn was skulking nearby and immediately jumped to her defence, saying "Three hot dogs is the exact right number for someone who is very thin but athletic!" Arwen nodded. 

Then Aragorn put his hand around Arwen's shoulders protectively and led her away. "Don't worry," he said, "these hot dogs are very small and you certainly need to eat at least three to keep your strength up." He ended up eating seven hot dogs just to make her feel better. I think they are back together again. 

December 18th 

I spent the entire day at the mall trying to find gifts for everyone, but only managed to buy a designer volleyball tee-shirt for Arwen. Then I met up with Elrohir after his shift at work, desperately in need of some stress relief. He was wearing a string of jingle bells around his neck. That helped a bit. 

We wanted to go catch a movie, but for some reason there were ridiculous queues up outside the cinema. So we went home instead and watched crappy old Fiommereth movies from the Second Age on community television. 

December 19th 

I managed to get a bit more shopping done. Dad has posted his list to the fridge, so that made things a bit easier. He is the only person I know who will ask for both a medium-sized Phillips head screwdriver and rose-scented bath salts. I ended up getting him satin pyjama bottoms and a few cinema admission coupons. Then I found a dance mix CD for Legolas and a Sights of Middle-earth calendar for Bilbo, as well as a generic Fiommereth food gift basket for the other Hobbits. I still don't know what to get for Aragorn, though. I was considering getting him a shaving set, but he might be insulted by that. 

December 20th 

Glorfindel has invited Elrohir and me to Lindir's karaoke and ping pong Fiommereth party tonight. I am finished my shopping now (having bought a crossword puzzle book for Gandalf, a snowboard magazine for Boromir, and a travelling backpack for Aragorn earlier today), so I might end up going just to try to get me into the holiday spirit. Elrohir is definitely going, and is wearing his festive socks that light up whenever he takes a step. Which makes me think that I probably ought to go, if just to keep an eye on him. He gets a bit excited at parties, even ones full of old people playing ping pong. 

December 21st 

Even thought I've never known him very well, I've always considered Lindir to be pretty much a watered-down version of Erestor. Now having met and talked to him, I'm quite certain he's pretty much a watered-down version of Erestor. Very watered-down. He met us at the door, wearing a festive green sweater with bells on it, and shook everyone's hands in a way that indicated he has no muscles in his arms. I was almost afraid to hand him the plate of veggies and dip Aralindë made for fear he'd drop it. But he took it and said, "Oh, super!" then scurried off into the kitchen. His wife, who was wearing a remarkably low-cut gold dress and enough fake diamonds to blind an army, took our coats. She kept accidentally brushing her bosom against Glorfindel's arm as she did. 

She told Elrohir and Aralindë that the kids were all in the basement watching television. Elrohir took one look at the party, which was in full swing with various parental-types standing around holding paper cups and filo pastries, and took off for the stairs. Then Lindir's wife introduced herself to Glorfindel as Fainelleth before making the common mistake of turning to Aralindë and saying, "And this must be your... daughter?" Glorfindel forced a smile and said, "Girlfriend, actually." Fainelleth got an awkward sort of "Oh" look on her face. Glorfindel and Aralindë mercifully excused themselves to discover the alcohol. I decided my best bet would be to follow Elrohir. 

We spent most of the party sitting around on bean bag chairs, drinking Coke. Two who may or may not have been Lindir's kids played ping pong. I noticed that there was a real live arcade-style pinball table in the corner, but alas it was broken. And Elrohir was busy chatting up some girl with an eyebrow ring, so I couldn't even talk to him. All in all I think I would have been better off staying home to help dad and Arwen make mincemeat tarts. 

Around midnight I went back upstairs to ask Glorfindel how late we'd be staying, and found him with a rum drink in one hand and a microphone in the other, singing "Born to be Wild" half a beat behind the music. Lindir was trying to do backup vocals, but I don't think there are any backup vocals on that song so it wasn't working too well. I walked away slowly without making eye contact and was just about at the stairs again when I ran into Erestor. He looked like he was having a great time. He also looked like he could be Lindir's long-lost brother- same dopey expression. Only he was wearing a red sweater with no bells. Also, he seems to have muscles in his arms, since he dragged me outside to go for a walk around the back yard. 

He talked about a variety of stuff as we walked in small circles (Lindir's back yard isn't very big). I think the point he was trying to make was that he was sorry for the difficulties we had this summer and would like to try again. I would have said something in agreement, but he has this disturbing habit of kissing me abruptly and when I least expect it, so I was unable to voice my assent. 

Elrohir eventually came out to say it was time to go, right as we were doing something important beside the mugo pines. At the time I was somewhat upset over his interruption, but in retrospect I'm sure it was for the best. I would have hated to have caused some sort of problem with Lindir's neighbours over public decency bylaws. I ended up getting a ride home with Erestor, and I'm glad I did. Elrohir, stuck in the car with Glorfindel, was conned into agreeing to go to Aralindë's school Fiommereth concert on Monday. Ha! 

On the drive home Erestor and I agreed to keep our relationship a secret. He said that we really shouldn't worry about it too much, since everybody already know's he has gayish leanings, but I told him that nobody knows about *me* and I don't want to trouble them with such a shock over the holidays. He paused and slowly said, "Right..." So we agreed to tell everyone in the new year. And I'm going to keep up the appearance of not dating by continuing to share the sofa with Elrohir, at least until the Hobbits go (three more days). 

December 22nd 

Aragorn is acting all weird and quiet. I hope he's remembered to buy presents for everyone. There are only two shopping days left until Arfiommereth. 

Everything is getting a bit busy around here, with last minute baking emergencies and mad scrambles to dig all the seasonal tapes out from the tape bin. Arwen started off hand-stitching a bunch of new decorative crafts, but has given up on that and pulled out the glue gun. Erestor had at one point been trying to learn a few holiday songs to play on the piano, but I think he's abandoned that idea now and has gone back to just "Aladdin Sane". And Glorfindel is looking generally lost. He asked me earlier, in a tired voice, if I wouldn't mind if he gave me just a gift certificate or something. I said that would be fine. Fiommereth shopping is a bit beyond him, I think. 

Then he said he doesn't know why people buy each other presents for "Fiommerel" anyway. I said I didn't either and, if you think about it, it really doesn't make any sense. His theory is that gift-giving evolved from the unquenchable Noldorin desire to make things and force them upon others. He never got any presents when he was a kid in Valmar, so the consumerist mentality obviously couldn't have come from the Vanyar. 

I asked him what people did for Fiommereth in Valmar back then, and he said they mostly sat around and ate special food. But they weren't allowed to do any work, so the food had to be made the day before. Then they sang songs. So Glorfindel started to sing, 

_Á tula, ily' Eldar   
Á tula, nai liralyë   
Á sanga, nai sangalyë   
Valinoressë   
Kenalmitas, i nórë Valaro   
Á tula, á laita ro   
Á tula, á laita ro   
Nai laita ilyë ro   
Manwë heru_

Though I think his pronunciation might have included a few more Ds and Zs. 

Afterward, I asked Legolas what they did for Fiommereth in Mirkwood. He said it was more or less a big party with lots of drinking and singing and dancing, and they give presents as well. They don't have silver or gold Fiommereth trees, though. Nor to they recognise any association with Eonwë or the Valar. In fact, their holiday used to be called Arpherhîw back a long time ago, but Fiommereth eventually took over due to cultural assimilation with Sindar from northern Beleriand who were converted by Noldorin missionaries in the First Age, and also because of the greeting card industry. 

I was impressed that he knew all this. He grinned and said he learned it from television. 

December 23rd 

I am starting to see things from Glorfindel's point of view. Here we have a real religious day to honour the birth of the son of Manwë, and everyone keeps falling back to old Sindarin traditions as an excuse to get drunk and eat pudding. Everyone in Valinor must be looking over to us in shame. Especially to Elrohir. He's rigged up a battery pack to a string of coloured lights and decorated himself. 

But then again, the minute Glorfindel got back from Aralindë's concert with Elrohir he immediately found himself a glass of egg nog and joined the festivities with ivy vines in his hair. So maybe I'd do best not to be too concerned about it. 

December 24th (Fiommerethin) 

When Elrohir and I were wee, Elrohir would always get so excited that he couldn't sleep. As a result, we were locked in the basement with a whole assortment of toys and games and ended up sitting awake the whole night playing Payday. Inevitably, half an hour after we'd been sent down, dad would stand at the top of the stairs and yell, "Hey Celebrían, where did you put those socks and underwear we bought for Elrohir?" Which would never fail to make Elrohir look very worried and yell back, "I don't want socks and underwear, I want a race car set!" 

We continued to be locked in the basement until Arwen was born. Then the real fun began, tormenting her by saying, "Oh no! It's Fiommerethin and dad forgot to mail your letter to Aulë!" She caught onto that one after two years, though. And when she was ten, Elrohir took it upon himself to explain that toys weren't really made by Aulë and his workshop of Elves in the west, but by a factory in Gondor. And they weren't really delivered by Oromë and Nahar, but bought by mum and dad from a store and stuck under the tree after we went to bed. I don't think she ever really forgave him for destroying the magic. Years later, Elrohir did the same thing to Aragorn. But Aragorn rolled his eyes and said, "Duh!" 

Now even after all this time, Elrohir still can't sleep on Fiommerethin. So he's playing Payday with Legolas. I don't think Legolas can sleep either. But that might be because Elrohir keeps punching him in the arm whenever he starts to nod off. 

December 25th (Arfiommereth) 

Elrohir woke me up this morning by bouncing on the bed and shaking me while yelling, "Wake up wake up wake up!" just in case I wasn't already 100% sure of his intentions. Legolas was standing a few feet away, shaking Elrohir and saying, "Elrohir Elrohir! Tell him to wake up!" I looked at the clock. It was quarter to seven. I groaned and tried to explain that dad specifically ordered everyone to stay in bed until at least eight, but he was already off and running to wake dad, Arwen, Aragorn, Glorfindel, and Erestor. Legolas took off after him to harass Boromir, Gandalf, and the Hobbits. I went back to sleep. 

Elrohir woke me up again at two minutes after eight, looking a bit less chipper. I think dad must've locked him in the basement. But I got up and followed him to the kitchen, where everyone had gathered around coffee mugs. Glorfindel looked particularly horrible, leaning over his coffee and glaring at Elrohir with bloodshot eyes. He is not a morning person. I stood next to Erestor and watched as the Hobbits stumbled in. They are obviously not morning people either. 

Finally, when everyone had gathered, dad announced that we could unwrap presents. Elrohir was the first one to run and sit by the tree, handing out gifts to everyone. That's his job every year. I got:   
A CD burner from "Aulë"   
A DVD documentary about Fingolfin also from "Aulë"   
A full-length bathrobe and matching slippers from dad   
Assorted socks, underwear, and tee-shirts also from dad   
Suede gloves from Arwen   
A CD of 21 different computer pinball games from Elrohir (working in retail seems to have improved his shopping skills)   
A book on photography techniques and a set of close-up filters from Erestor   
A whole bunch of cinema passes from Glorfindel   
A decorative throw pillow from Legolas   
A tin of Laffy Taffy and some blank tapes from Aragorn   
A book of trivia games from Boromir   
A bedside lamp from the Hobbits (probably to replace the one Frodo broke)   
A tin of smoked oysters from Bilbo (???)   
A card and a wad of cash from Gandalf   
A set of five bathroom towels in assorted sizes from grandma and grandpa 

After it was all done and over with, Elrohir had the biggest pile of loot by far. I attribute this to the fact that everything he likes is cheap and plentiful. His favourite gift was a remote control rat (on wheels) from Erestor. He's been crashing it into people's feet all day. But the most sensational gift was Arwen's from Aragorn- an insanely big diamond ring. She screamed and jumped up and down and nearly crushed Elrohir's rat as it zoomed past. I think this means they're engaged now. I wonder if dad approves. 

At ten we sat down for a quick breakfast while watching grandma and grandpa's Arfiommereth speech on television. Then we had to hurry and get dressed in our best clothes for dad's televised speech, and to see off Frodo and company (finally!) as they left for Mordor. Arwen sobbed and fiddled with her ring throughout the entire thing. 

It took a thankfully short time to get everyone's stuff all packed up into the hired bus Aragorn was driving, but Boromir stood around looking surly over having to follow Aragorn's lead. I told him that Aragorn is supposed to be king of Gondor one day, so maybe Boromir would do best to get used to his leadership. Boromir frowned and then, after a pause, asked me if I though Aragorn would be open to legalising weed once he's king. I assured him that would be right on top Aragorn's priority list. He looked a bit better then and got into the bus. 

I said a quick goodbye to everyone else, and promised Legolas I would try to remember to email him at least once. Then dad had a chat with Gandalf, and the bus took off. Arwen started sobbing again and wailed that she missed Aragorn. He'd been gone for three minutes. The next few months are going to be unbearable. 

We went back into the house and all sat down in time to watch Círdan's Arfiommereth speech on television. Then Elrohir and I were told to move all our stuff out of the den and back to our own bedrooms. Elrohir grumbled as he walked into his room, but came bolting out two seconds later yelling "I GOT AN IGUANA!!!" I ran to see, and indeed there was a small green iguana sitting on a branch in a terrarium on his dresser. In all the excitement caused by the remote control rat, I guess he forgot that dad hadn't given him his present yet. He took the iguana out, put it on his head, and it sat there all through supper. He told everyone its name is Dr. Green, but later he whispered to me that the iguana's secret name is Gil-galad. He just can't tell anyone else because they'd be angry. I warned him to be particularly wary of this around Erestor. 

After supper we gathered in the television room again, with Gil-galad the iguana still sitting on Elrohir's head, to watch Olwë's speech live via satellite from Alqualondë. An hour later there was Finarfin's speech from Tirion. About halfway through, when the camera switched to pan the crowd, Glorfindel suddenly jumped up, pointed at the television and yelled, "That's my mum!" Unfortunately the camera had already cut away and we missed it. But still Glorfindel sat right up next to the screen for the rest of the speech, and all through Ingwë's speech at midnight, in case she showed up again. But no luck. 

Now Glorfindel is completely confused. Everyone else has gone to bed already, but he's still sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea, trying to figure out how and why his mum would be in Tirion, and on television. I suggested that she might have just gone for the speech, but he insists such a thing wouldn't make any sense. So he's going to sit and worry about it all night, because doing that sure does make sense... 

Me, I don't care. If I saw my mum on television in Tirion, I wouldn't worry about it. But then, I am very tired right now. So I am going to watch my new Fiommereth DVD and hopefully fall asleep leaning on Erestor's shoulder. That would be the best end to a good day, I think. 


	3. Home for the Holidays 3

  
December 26th 

As per tradition, I stayed in bed until three today before getting up and wandering around aimlessly in my new robe and slippers. Elrohir was already up and on castle four of Zelda. Glorfindel, who was watching him play and looking a bit disgruntled, told me I was wanted in the kitchen. So I wandered over there, where dad and Erestor were trying to find the sprout steamer. Dad explained that since we were so busy yesterday, he decided we ought to have real turkey supper today. He looked a bit stressed. The kitchen looked like a general chaos area. 

Erestor told me to get dressed and then come back to peel potatoes, which I did. It was supposed to be Glorfindel's job to do the potatoes, but he complained that mashed potatoes are always too bland and offered to improve them. Dad sensibly panicked and hurried Glorfindel out of the kitchen to keep company with Elrohir, who was kicked out because he sneezed on the turkey. 

As soon as the potatoes were done grandma rang long-distance and insisted on talking to someone at once, so I was excused to deal with her. She started off calmly enough telling me all about the electric vibrating back massage wand grandpa gave her that she found a better and more exciting use for, and that the tape Glorfindel sent wouldn't play in her video. I honestly didn't know what to say in reply to this, so I changed the subject by thanking her for the bath towels. She said grandpa picked them out. 

Then I said that I probably should go, since we were in the middle of making supper. But she sounded desperate and asked me to stay on the line for a while because grandpa's driving her crazy. They watched a sci-fi movie on cable this afternoon and ever since he's been rambling on about how he doesn't understand how someone could think up an imaginative storyline like that, let alone make it into a movie. She figures he's said, "I just can't get over that movie," at least twenty times since three-thirty. She complained about it in at least twenty different ways before finally (almost an hour later) letting me go. 

I saw that supper was ready then, and that Elrohir had changed into supper clothes, put Gil-galad the iguana on his head, and sat down at the table. I sat across from him, as I was wary that if I sat beside him the iguana would climb onto me. It had a sneaky sort of look in its eyes. Dad tried to say that iguanas don't belong at the supper table, but Elrohir wasn't listening to him. He kept touching the iguana and then eating turkey with his fingers. 

He had to do the dishes after supper, with the iguana still on his head. I tried to play Zelda, but died four times when those dumb red things shot rocks at me. So I gave up and played the new pinball games Elrohir bought me until Erestor came and interrupted with suggestions of much more worthwhile activities. 

December 27th 

I don't think I did anything important all day. I didn't get dressed, and I only left my room twice, both times for a plate of what Elrohir calls Merry Fiommereth Mush (which is made by taking a bit of all the leftovers, mushing them together, covering the whole deal with gravy, and microwaving it) and a few Nandorin oranges. Otherwise I stayed in bed and watched television and movies. Elrohir joined me for a while, but he just lay with the iguana on his stomach and made loud breathing sounds, so I'm not even really sure why he was there. Then after Elrohir left Erestor joined me, but he soon fell asleep with his hair dangling onto the gravy plate, and is still asleep now. 

I had to get up and lock the door in case anyone like dad or Glorfindel came by and saw us together, but then I thought that the locked door would look even more suspicious. So I propped the door wide open and decided to say that we were innocently watching a movie together if anyone asked. Luckily nobody did, though dad stood in the doorway for a while before shaking his head and walking off. He must've noticed Erestor's hair was in the gravy. 

December 28th 

When I got up this morning (more like this afternoon, actually), I found Glorfindel sitting at the table with a cup of coffee looking worried again, this time with his pink blankie wrapped around his shoulders. I asked him if he was still thinking about his mum being on television in Tirion, and he said yes. He's been worrying about it since Arfiommereth. 

I asked him why he doesn't just write a letter or something to ask, and he got a sort of blank look on his face. Then he said, "I never thought of that!" I asked if he'd ever written to his mum, and he said, "No." So he has been away from his mum for several millenia now and hasn't once written home! For someone who worries about her so much, he is awfully dense. 

He is now in sitting at the table with a new cup of coffee and a stack of writing paper. The letter is seventeen pages double sided so far, and he's not even summarised his life up to the end of the First Age yet. This massive biography is going to cost a fortune to post to overseas. Though I suspect he'll just use the postage meter at work. 

December 29th 

Glorfindel is still working on his letter. It is twenty-nine pages long and counting. He came to an impasse earlier when he couldn't figure out how to spell "Gil-galad" in the Tengwar mode used for whatever dialect the Vanyar speak, but finally he opted just to write "the king" instead. Then I asked how he was going to spell his own name in an alphabet devoid of Gs. He just looked at me as if I were a moron and said, "There are no Gs in my name." 

I think he might be under too much stress. 

December 30th 

Forty-six pages and counting. I hope Glorfindel's mum has a lot of free time on her hands. I also hope Glorfindel's Quendya spelling is better than his Sindarin. He still sometimes forgets that there's an N in "Elrond". 

9 p.m.: Glorfindel's letter is finished at a modest sixty-one pages. He claims he had to gloss over most parts because his hand was starting to get cramped from writing. He asked me to proofread it. 

10 p.m.: I had to give up proofreading due to the fact that I can't figure out what half the letters are supposed to be. Glorfindel said, "Well, I'm sure it's fine anyhow." So we packaged it up in a big brown envelope. 

10-30 p.m.: Glorfindel came into my room after having realised that he doesn't know his mum's address. We tried to look it up in the online directory, but no luck. So he settled for writing her name and then "VALMAR" in big letters with a jiffy marker, and is going to stick on a whole lot of extra postage to compensate. 

11-30 p.m.: Glorfindel came into my room again worrying about the appropriateness of including his telephone number with the letter. He did include it, but is worried that his mum might try to telephone him, and she is not very rich and probably can't afford such a thing. I assured him that if she does manage to contact him, he can always get her number and ring her back. 

11-50 p.m.: Glorfindel came back in a panic, suddenly having realised that he doesn't think his mum can read. The lower-class Vanyar, he says, have very little interest in literacy and tend to just remember things. He didn't learn how to read or write until he came to Middle-earth to live among the Noldor, after all. By this time I was getting a bit annoyed, but managed to calmly tell him that in all likelihood she knows at least one person in the whole city who can read and will be able to read it to her. He seemed satisfied with that. 

12-20 a.m.: Glorfindel came back yet again wondering if he ought to have included his email address along with his telephone number. It was all I could do to keep from cursing as I told him that if his mum is poor, and if she can't read, it's highly likely that she doesn't have a computer. He said, "Oh right," and then left again. 

If he comes back to ask me if I think he should have included his fax number, I might have to kill him. 

December 31st (New Year's Eve) 

Dad is having a party tonight. Elrohir is going to a party tonight. Arwen is going to the pub tonight. I have no idea what to do, and it's almost six. 

Ideally, I would like to stay home with Erestor, but that would involve attending dad's party and likely playing Trivial Pursuit or Pictionary with people like Lindir and eating bridge mix. I could always go out with Elrohir, but the parties he likes always involve at least one person either falling down the stairs or passing out drunk in the hedge to a soundtrack of painfully loud punk music while Elrohir is on the sofa trying to get lucky with someone who may or may not be conscious. And the idea of spending time with Arwen and her friends is just not worth considering. 

I suppose I could always stay home and watch movies. Though I'd like to at least try to kid myself into believing that I'm not quite that pathetic. 

January 1st (New Year's Day) 

It is now 3019. Nothing much feels different. I have a bruise on my leg the size of a hamster, but that's about if for changes that have come around since midnight. 

At nine I had decided to go with Elrohir to his party, only to discover that he'd already left. So I was forced to resort to Plan B, which was stay at home with dad. That was going well enough (I was on Erestor's team for Tri-Bond) until Aralindë showed up with another stupid vegetable tray. It worries me that she came to dad's dumb party to be with Glorfindel instead of going out with her friends and having fun. Things are getting dangerously serious between them. This was about when I convinced myself that maybe watching movies by myself wasn't so lame after all. All sorts of made-for-television goodness can be found on New Year's Eve, if you know where to look for it. 

I got about twenty minutes into some old black and white historical drama about Finwë (the sort where the actors speak in booming voices and wear tights and too much eyeliner) before falling asleep. When I woke up a marginally less old colour historical drama about Thingol was on. It was nearly midnight, so I decided to hazard checking on dad's party and maybe sneaking a drink or two. I walked into the kitchen and interrupted a disappointingly subdued game of Yahtzee. 

Erestor gave me a bored look. I gave him a bored look back. He, dad, Glorfindel, Lindir, Fainelleth, Bilbo, and some old Man whose name I can never remember (I think it starts with M) were sitting around looking tired and holding glasses of flat champagne. Aralindë had fallen asleep in her chair next to Glorfindel. I pointed out it was three minutes to midnight. 

Bilbo looked at his watch and said, "So it is!" He was the liveliest one there. Everyone else just sort of nodded. They did a rather joyless countdown forty seconds too early, then another, slightly better one at about the right time. Everyone downed their champagne. Then Glorfindel stood up and said, "Well, midnight, guess it's time for bed," at which Aralindë perked up enough to lift her head from the table. Glorfindel is obviously aiming for the prestigious title of First One of the Year to Get His Girlfriend Knocked Up. 

Erestor then excused himself to go to the biff and never came back. I stood around helping dad say goodbye to the guests and clearing half-eaten adult food such as whole wheat biscuits with artichoke-cheese dip from the table. Then before I could get a talking-to from dad saying that he was disappointed in me for ditching most of the party to be antisocial, I ducked out of the kitchen (he made the mistake of turning around to put the prawn dish on the counter) and made for Erestor's room. Erestor wasn't there, but I heard the bathroom sink running and supposed he was probably washing up and hopefully talking out the blue contacts. I've still not managed to work up the courage to tell him that his Technicolor eyes frighten me. 

I would've gone in to help him wash up, hard-to-reach spots and all, but last time I tried that he panicked when the bathroom door opened, slipped on a spot of wet tile, fell over backward, and banged his head on the towel rack. Which isn't really the best prelude to a romantic evening. Though I guess neither is tripping over my trouser legs while trying to pull them off and subsequently falling on to Erestor's bed, banging my thigh on that damn bedpost in the process (origin of hamster-sized bruise, I'm guessing). Erestor hurried out of the bathroom in time to see me half undressed and near sobbing from the pain. He wasn't very nice about it, either. But he was wearing only a very small towel, so I was able to forgive him easily. 

He asked if I'd broken anything, and I said no, my leg was only just bruised. He said he meant broken anything important, like the bedpost or frame. I scowled and said no, his bed was just as sturdy and dangerous as it had always been. Then he leaned over to examine his stupid bed before helping me stand up! He was about to say something that probably also would have been annoying, but I quickly kissed him before he had the chance to complain about anything that would have convinced me I'd be better off spending the night by myself. 

I don't recall either of us saying anything coherent and/or noteworthy from that point onward, or at least anything that warrants repeating. 

January 2nd 

While I was sitting having lunch today, dad came and casually sat down and casually asked why I've spending so much time with Erestor recently. I assured him I had been hired by Glorfindel to do reconnaissance work pertaining to year-end accounting necessities, and Erestor was *this* close to a severe audit. He asked if that was why I was in Erestor's room on New Year's Eve. I said yes. He asked why Erestor was wearing only a towel. I told him Erestor had just come from the shower. Then he asked why Erestor and I were kissing. For lack of any better response, I said, "New Year's tradition?" 

He shook his head and walked away. I wonder how much he saw? I think I might be found out. I went to ask Elrohir if dad had come questioning him too and if he'd given away anything, but he looked sort of scraggly and red-eyed and not quite recovered from partying yet so I think it's safe to assume that he was in no state to divulge any information to dad about Erestor and me. He was just sitting on a chair staring at the telly, which was off. I asked him how his New Years party was, and he mumbled, "Good." 

Then he told me he saw an alien while he and his friends were walking home. I was almost convinced, too, until he told me it was sicking up in the car park at Toys R Us. I suggested he send an email to Legolas telling him all about it. This seems like the sort of thing Legolas would appreciate. 

January 3rd 

Dad sat both Erestor and me down today to accuse us of being sneaky and secretive. Dad asked how long the relationship had been going on, and Erestor said that we didn't have a "relationship". Which is true. He prefers to think of our dalliances more as "organised casual sex". Dad didn't approve of that, though; he is very old-fashioned when it comes to any sex life other than his own. He still thinks Arwen is a virgin! 

He asked if we really thought that this relationship (he used the word again despite Erestor's correction) was for the best. Erestor tried to fob him off by saying something about how we're all probably going to be moving to Valinor within the next few years and should be spending our last few moments in Middle-earth making the most of life, but dad didn't buy that. He just told Erestor to shut up and then asked me what I think. I truthfully told him that I am sick of always being considered the responsible one and wanted to do something impulsive and frivolous for once. And since getting a tattoo is too permanent and shaving my head is too late-Second-Age nihilist punk, starting up a scandalous relationship with Erestor is the only alternative. I said that dad wouldn't think twice if it were Elrohir doing all these zany things. 

Dad said, "On the contrary, I would be just as concerned over your brother's poor judgement in this matter." Erestor said, "What do you mean, 'poor judgement'?!" I, angry at this point, stood up and yelled, "Elrohir's judgement of relationships is never anything but poor! He even shagged Gildor in the back of Aragorn's van at Fangorn National Park this summer!" 

Then everything got very quiet. Dad narrowed his eyes and hissed, "He did **_what_**?" But before I could answer he was already up and out to the corridor, yelling for Elrohir in a way that indicated vast amounts of trouble were imminent. I think I probably should have kept my mouth shut. 

January 4th 

Elrohir and I are moving out. After his talking-to (more like yelling-at) yesterday afternoon, Elrohir decided he couldn't take living here any more. So he got right onto the internet and within two hours found a cheap house for rent on the west side. He came into my room this morning and said, "We're moving out on Wednesday!" He looked very determined, so I didn't dare argue with him. I just innocently asked why. 

He said, "Some idiot blabbed to dad that I wheeled Gildor and now he's gone all arsey about it!" I did my best to look sympathetic and said that Gildor probably let it slip in one of his emails. He said, "That's what I figured." 

So we're moving out in four days. I should start packing. Elrohir started packing, but has stopped because he can't figure out how to pack an iguana. I should also probably tell Erestor that I'm leaving. This moving business is going to inconvenience our non-relationship somewhat. We may have to start going on actual dates and fooling around in the car and all that typical stuff. 

January 5th 

Emails from Aragorn, Boromir, and Legolas today. I think they must've taken turns at an internet café. 

-----   
From: "Aragorn" strider@ardamail.com>   
Subject: hey 

hey- hows things? were in this dumb little town right   
now cause the hobbits wanted to stop for drinks. they   
make me stop the van every half hour to get up and   
look at stuff. it really sucks. this is taking   
forever. if it was just me driving id be at mordor by   
now. hows arwen? i wrote her an email to but she never   
answers the questions i write. she just goes on about   
dumb crap like her feelings and stuff. hows elrond? is   
he mad at me? gandalf doesnt think so but i dont know.   
let me know.   
see ya,   
A   
-----   
-----   
From: "Boromir" monkeyman78@ardamail.com>   
Subject: Hey 

Hey Elladan. Stuffs cool here how are yyou? Aragorn's   
being a jerkoff still but that's okay. I just ignore   
him. He's better that way and just talks to Gandaf and   
Legolas anyway and sometimes Frodo. Is Gandaf supposed   
to be like a chaperone or something? I mean I know he   
smokes and stuff too but I feel a bit wierd drinking   
with him you know? And he won't let us get PPV at the   
motels. Old people suck. 

Anyway nothing els is happening. That guy Sam Frodo's   
gardner has a sweet stash of pipeweed so that's cool.   
Makes the drive more bearable you know what I mean?   
But I gotta go now, Legolas wants to use the email. 

Bye,   
Boromir 

______________   
"Do or do not- there is no try"   
______________   
-----   
-----   
From: *Legolas* legolas3000@royals.mk>   
Subject: Road trip!!! :) 

Hi Elladan!!! This is so cool! We're in this really   
cool town right now where there's a big bronse statue   
of a tea pot! I took a photo to show you but this   
internet cafe doesn't have a scanner so I can't send   
it right now and also I don't have the film developed   
yet. There was also a picknick table by the big tea   
pot and Aragorn carved his name into it with his knife   
that's on his key chain. He also has a tape measurer   
on his key chain but I don't know why it's there.   
Boromir has a key chain with a funny leaf on it. My   
key chain just has a owl thats kind of old and a bit   
dirty. 

I have to share a room with Boromir and Aragorn at the   
motels we stay at. The hobbit s also share a room and   
Gandalf shares a room with Gimli, I think because they   
both have beards. They do snore alot too. Sharing   
with Aragorn is ok because he sleeps alot and watches   
TV but Boromir is worse because he forgets to wear his   
pants and also takes up too much room in the shower   
(we have to shower together or else the motel will run   
out of water). Last night I had to sleep with him on   
the floor again because he saw another big spider in   
my bed and I HATE SPIDERS!!! 

Aragorn says we have to go now because it is getting   
dark and we have to drive more but I will email you   
again soon! :) 

CU   
*LEGOLAS***   
----- 

I thought about sending replies but in the end realised that I had nothing to say in return. It occurred to me that everyone I know is uninteresting. So I played pinball instead. I would've done something with Erestor, but he wasn't around and I was too busy to leave the computer and actually look for him. 

January 6th 

Most of my things are packed. I started off nicely putting everything into boxes, but then realised that would take up too much space in the car. So now I have most things in piles with just a few boxes of CDs and tapes and so forth. Elrohir's also done more packing, but his method is to just toss everything into green plastic bin bags that are then labelled with masking tape. One of the bags is labelled "CLZ", but the other two are just "STUF" so I'm not sure why he even bothered with a label. 

January 7th 

My room is bare. Everything is in bins, boxes, or piles ready to be moved. Erestor came in to have a look at everything and said, "Yes, it sure looks empty in here." I note he did not say anything to the effect of being sorry I'm moving out! Then dad came in and said something eerily similar, again with no hint that he is sorry to see me go. In fact, only Glorfindel looked the least bit worried and said he'd rather have me stay. He just can't trust Erestor to help him find his car keys after wild nights of drunken revelry, and dad is no help whatsoever when it comes to looking up Thranduil's office telephone number in the online directory. I promised him I'd put the cordless beside my bed so that he could ring me at any hour in case of emergency. 

But I think I'm going to have to call round every other day to check on him, since I later saw him looking forlornly into the mailbox. I tried to explain that his enormous letter probably wasn't even in Valmar yet and that he has to be patient. After seven thousand years you think he could handle waiting another two weeks! 

January 8th 

I have had to put off moving. Glorfindel needs me here. So Elrohir has taken all his things over to the new house to set up, and I will join him as soon as I can. 

I am currently helping Glorfindel with the telephone. Unable to wait a second longer, he decided to ring directory assistance in Valmar to try to locate his mum. We've had no luck so far. He's been on the line for nearly half an hour with four different assistants, talking in their funny Vanyarin language, and has established only that his mother does not have a telephone. 

Later: After forty-eight minutes one of the directory assistants came up with a number for Glorfindel's grandfather, who seems to have a telephone. The two were connected, and the conversation that followed consisted of a bunch of stuff that was too fast and strange for me to understand interspersed with Glorfindel saying, very slowly and clearly, "Indyodya!" and "Ambarendyassë!" In the end I don't think they ever understood each other, since Glorfindel was wholly unsuccessful in convincing his grandfather that he was in fact who he said he was, not just some wacko telephoning long distance for the fun of it. He was unable to get his mum's number. 

I tried to tell him that if he couldn't get his mum's number from either directory assistance or his grandfather, it would be highly unlikely that he'd find it at the bottom of a Bacardi bottle. But he never listens to me when I say relevant things like that. 

January 8th 

The government Fiommereth break is over, so dad and Erestor had to go back to work today. So did Glorfindel, since it's time for him to get at the year-end material and try to sort out all that accounting stuff. I don't think he did any actual work, though, since when he got home the first think he proudly told me was that he spent all day online looking through email databases, and eventually came up with an email address for his aunt Aldamizdë. Then he spent the last half hour of the day typing her a short message. It took a long time since his "substandard Sindarin keyboard" was missing the letter Z. 

I told him he had to type 363 while holding down the ALT key to get a Z. He marvelled at my computer knowledge for a good four seconds before hurrying off to send another email, this one with proper Zs instead of Rs. 

January 9th 

The telephone company rang Glorfindel this morning as he was leaving to go to work. They asked if he was aware that somebody used his mobile the other day on a long-distance conversation to Valinor for well over an hour during regular rate time. He said yes, he aware, as it was his conversation. Then he asked, out of curiosity, how much it cost. I don't even want to guess what the hapless telephone company employee said, since Glorfindel's response consisted of "WHAT?!!!" and a collection of many unmentionable words besides. 

After he disconnected he sat on a chair in the front entry with his head in his hands and made unhappy noises. I asked if there was anything I could do to help, and he said "Steal money from Erestor and give it to me so I can pay my horrific telephone bill." I promised I'd look into that, but since I've never seen Erestor carry enough money to buy anything more than a pizza I probably wouldn't get very far. He made more unhappy noises. 

I tried to cheer him up by pointing out that at least he got to talk to his grandfather after such a long time away. He said he'd rather have saved the money, since he doesn't really like his grandfather, and his grandfather doesn't really like him. In fact, his grandfather blames him for ruining his mother's life. Most of his early grandfatherly memories include a traumatic recurring theme of the nickname "Bastard Noldo Child". 

I said I was sorry to hear that, and helped him with his coat before sending him out the door. I hope he drives safely. I tried to think of what it would be like to have such a relationship with grandpa, but couldn't imagine it. The worst thing grandpa's ever called me is a "goof". I don't think he knows any words worse than that. 

January 10th 

I think Glorfindel might be abusing my presence in this house. He made me waste my entire Saturday doing things with him, like Scrabble. I was almost tied with him until he stuck "THAUZON" on a triple word score with the Z on a double letter score and got 75 points. I asked him what a thauzon was. He claimed it was the Vanyarin spelling of "Sauron". I think he might have been fibbing, but there was no readily available Quendya-Sindarin dictionary so I had no way to call him on it. I did point out, though, that the Z tile he used was a blank one with a Z and the number 10 written on it with a Sharpie. He merely sniffed and said that he took the liberty of improving our "substandard Sindarin Scrabble game" to comply with international necessity. He used the other blank tile to make a Q, which is also worth 10 points. 

I said it was very convenient how the letters that never occur in Sindarin are worth 10 points. He said they are bonus letters for the enlightened ones. I asked if by "enlightened ones" he meant "Vanyar". He said yes. Then he stuck "QUENDYA" on another triple word/double letter combination for 140 points. I wanted to put down "CHEAT" for my turn, but unfortunately only had the letters to spell "STOOL". 

January 11th 

Another day wasted, sacrificed to the Glorfindel elemental. He took me shopping to help him pick out a birthday gift for Aralindë. She will be forty-nine in six days. I'm not sure why he brought me along, since I'm by no stretch of the imagination an expert on what high school girls like, but still I had to follow him from shop to shop, watching him dismiss everything as too impersonal, too poorly-made, too large, too small, too pink, too trendy, or too out-of-stock. The shop assistants were no help. They kept trying to sell him scented glittery hair gel and SpongeBob SquarePants tee-shirts. He kept dithering and finding faults until I got a bit fed up and suggested he just buy her some cheesy stuffed animal or heart-shaped necklace and then promise to take her shopping to pick out her own dumb birthday present. 

That seemed to make him happy, because he purchased a small beanbag duck and a silver necklace with a crystal flower at the next shop we entered. Then we went home. I should've made my suggestion three hours earlier. 

When we got home I tried to seek out Erestor to maybe do something that involved locking the door, but he was nowhere to be found. I asked Glorfindel where he was, but he said he didn't know. He said it very quickly, though, which makes me suspicious. Almost as if somebody told him to say that. 

January 12th 

Erestor didn't come home until very late. Dad was with him. They both looked tired. I asked where they'd been, and dad said, "Working." Erestor looked very surly, so I let him go to bed with no further questions. Then they left for work again very early this morning, so I had no chance to see him then either. And when they finally got home, I was occupied by Glorfindel who needed my help to figure out how to pay his telephone charges online using Visa, then pay his Visa charges over the telephone by bank fund transfer. 

When I finally escaped and discovered Erestor, he was already asleep. Isn't this just my luck! This summer when I was interested in spending time with Glorfindel, Erestor wouldn't leave me alone. And now that I want to be with Erestor, Glorfindel keeps hijacking me for helper-monkey purposes! The three of us ought to get together and try to work out some sort of a deal. Though the way things have been going lately, I wouldn't be surprised if Glorfindel and Erestor buggered off on their own and I was left without either of them. 

January 13th 

I've not spent more than two minutes alone with Erestor in almost the past two weeks. You'd think there was a plot to keep us apart or something! 

January 14th 

Dad broke down and admitted that he's been actively trying to keep Erestor and me apart, and that Glorfindel's been helping him. How nice is that! They are deliberately trying to sabotage my love life, since Elbereth knows I can't do that well enough on my own! 

I didn't bother to tell them I am leaving. I simply rang Elrohir at the new house and told him to come collect me and my things as soon as he could manage. I left a note for Erestor, though, in case notices that I'm gone or even remembers who I am after all this time apart. I included the new address and telephone number and also took the liberty of writing them in his day-timer, in case he looses the note. 

Now all that's left to do is wait for Elrohir. He should in theory have been here half an hour ago, but obviously he mistook my "as soon as you can manage" instruction to mean "after you have a snack, beat Super Mario 2, shower, eat lunch, talk to Orophin long-distance, have a nap, feed the iguana, and get dressed". I hope he gets here before five. I would really like to be out of the house and on my way to freedom before Glorfindel can twist my arm into helping him sort his closet into piles of what he still wears and what should be put away into drawers, never to be seen again.   


* * *

Elvish language notes:   
Glorfindel's Quendya (Vanyarin) words to his grandfather are as follows:   
"Indyodya" - "your grandson"   
"Ambarendyassë" - "in Middle-earth" 


	4. Home for the Holidays 4

  
January 14th (continued) 

Rivendell-Elessar! The new house is in Rivendell-*Elessar*! When Elrohir said "west side", I assumed he would at least have the sense not to go for something in the worst neighbourhood known to all residents of this city! There are stray animals wandering around! There are stray *children* wandering around! Broken alcohol bottles decorate every street! Half the cars have smashed-up windows fixed with packing tape and cardboard from pizza boxes! And our neighbours on both sides are AVARI!!! 

When Elrohir stopped the car and proudly asked me what I thought, I honestly felt ready to cry. The house is two storeys tall but only looks like it has enough paint left to cover one. The screen door has no screen and is inexplicably situated a foot above the ground with no front step leading up to it. The real door behind it has one missing pane that Elrohir fixed with a blue cellophane bag. All in all, it looks like one of those "fixer-upper" specials in the cheap section of the newspaper real estate listings. In fact, it probably was until Elrohir put the deposit down. 

I stepped out of the car, looking before I put my feet down to avoid any possible glass hazard. Somewhere down the block, someone was listening to very loud rap music. For lack of anything better, I said, "Yep it looks like a house." That seemed good enough for Elrohir, because he went bounding up to the stepless front door and waved for me to follow, saying that he wanted to show me around. I didn't want to leave all my things unprotected in the car, so I said that we should maybe bring everything inside first where it will be safer. Safer! Ha! Nothing will be safe in this neighbourhood! I might as well just give away my computer now, and the television, and the DVD player. 

We made a few trips to bring everything in and all the while the Avarin neighbours to the left kept looking at us. Three of them were sitting on their front step, obviously showing off that they had one. I wouldn't be surprised if it were really ours and they stole it before I got here. I kept the DVD player and computer wrapped up in clothes so they wouldn't see me bring in all the potentially stealable things we had. 

Once everything was in, Elrohir showed me around the house. He showed me the slanty main floor, the creepy damp concrete basement, and the crumbling bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. I left my shoes on the whole time because I was concerned the filthy carpet and lino might get my socks dirty. I think I will have to hire a Rug Doctor tomorrow. Elrohir had my bedroom set up already with one of the camp beds and a Doc Marten's box on top of a Nandorin orange box for a bedside table. He said he tried to assemble a desk out of boxes, but it kept falling over. 

Then he showed me his room. I tried to explain that the basketball-sized hole in the middle of the floor (overlooking the kitchen) was a hazard, not a feature, but he wouldn't listen. He said he was going to try to rig up some sort of bucket-and-rope pulley system for transportation of snacks. I asked him what would happen if he got up to go to the biff in the middle of the night and fell in the hole, but he said he found a hubcap in the alley that's the exact right size to cover the hole when it's not needed. 

I didn't want to unpack my things and risk dirtying them, so all I did for the rest of the day is sit on a sleeping bag on my camp bed and play computer pinball. Glorfindel rang in a panic around 5-30 after going to find me and discovering my bedroom evacuated, but he didn't even want anything. He was just shocked to find me gone. So I asked him to have Erestor give me a shout when he got home. It is nearly 10 now and still no word from Erestor, though. I am starting to remember that he is a horse's arse most of the time. 

January 15th 

Between barking dogs, police sirens, and getting up every fifteen minutes to make sure the car wasn't smashed up, I got no sleep last night. Also the camp bed is terribly uncomfortable, which didn't help any. 

I went downstairs to see if I could discover any breakfast, but there was none to be found. Elrohir ate the last of the pizza we ordered last night, leaving only a jar of peanut butter, a half-empty box of Dipps bars, and a few things of Jiffy Pop in the cupboards. There was Kool-Aid powder too, but no sugar. I yelled up to Elrohir to ask if there was a secret stash of food somewhere, but he yelled, "No." Then he stuck his arm down through the hole and asked me to pass him two Dipps bars and the peanut butter. That hole really is quite useful, in an annoying sort of way. 

Then I yelled that I was going to go to the Extra Foods. He yelled back that he was coming too, so I had to wait twenty minutes while he very slowly got out of bed and pulled on some clothes. We went out to the car, which I was pleased to see was not destroyed at all, and I drove to the Extra Foods. Elrohir made a list along the way. 

Once we got there we split up and I went about collecting everything important that I knew Elrohir would forget, like milk and eggs and potatoes and fruit and tea. I was glad I did, since when I met up with him he had a cart filled with naught but jars. Pickles, olives, salsa, cocktail wienies, maraschino cherries, mayonnaise, and about anything else that can come in a jar. He explained that there are no dishes at the new house, and purchasing jars eliminates the need to buy cups. I surreptitiously added a cheap Corel plate set and a pack of plastic cutlery to my cart on the way to the checkout. 

I also bought Mr. Clean, TSP, Lysol, a Bee-mop and, according to plan, got the Rug Doctor. I've spent the last five hours cleaning and have so far only finished with my bedroom, the corridor, and the upstairs bathroom. I took a break to check my email, but realised that we have no internet connection yet. I will have to look into that straight away. 

January 16th 

The house is slightly better now that everything's deep-cleaned and disinfected. I feel safe walking around in just my socks at least, and unpacking my things. We have no high-speed internet connection yet, but I did manage to get the dial-up working until the internet man calls round (next week) to get everything established. So I checked my email and found this one from Aragorn, dated yesterday: 

-----   
From: "Aragorn" strider@ardamail.com>   
Subject: need your help 

hey elladan- whats the password for moria?   
gandalf cant remember.   
A   
----- 

Followed by another:   
-----   
From: "Aragorn" strider@ardamail.com>   
Subject: ignore 

never mind that last message he got it   
A   
----- 

I guess this means they're on their way through Moria now. Which also means they'll be arriving in Lórien soon. So I sent off a quick email to Rúmil telling him to make sure Haldir gives them a hard time at the border. 

January 17th 

Elrohir is having a party tonight, the purpose of which is supposed to be introducing me to the neighbours. I tried to tell him that I don't *want* to meet the neighbours, but he claims they're all nice people. I also tried to tell him that they're Avari and by definition can't be trusted. He said that was a racial stereotype and I shouldn't pigeonhole them by their appearance. I said, "What about by their history and reputation?" but unfortunately at that exact second the doorbell rang and Elrohir didn't hear me. 

The three shady-looking types who sit on the step next door came in bearing alcohol. Elrohir led them straight over to me and introduced them. I was a bit disappointed to learn that they all had regular Sindarin names like Agladir and Aerben and Callondhaer. The one that I think was Aerben held out his hand and I took it, tentatively. 

He said, "What, you afraid to shake my hand 'cause I'm Avarin?" to which I replied, "No, of course not." But he must've known I was lying because then he scowled and said, "You tarrin' me, mithi?" 

I had no idea what this meant, so I said, "Not that I am aware of, no." I think he must've said something rude in Avarin, because the other two laughed. But luckily Elrohir intervened right then and asked Aerben if he wanted to hold the iguana. I was able to escape moments later while Elrohir was busy untangling Gil-galad from Aerben's hair. 

I slipped up the stairs, and not a moment too soon. Just as I got to the top I saw the door open and five more Avari wearing leather jackets and bandanas trooped in. Not knowing what else to do I rang Glorfindel. He can't stand the Avari and is the only person I can think of who might know how to get rid of them. Unfortunately Glorfindel wasn't home, but Erestor answered the telephone. 

Erestor asked me what was wrong and didn't seem the least bit concerned when I explained the situation. I bet he has never had to go to parties with Avari! I asked when Glorfindel would be back and Erestor said that he was out with Aralindë for her birthday and would in all likelihood not be back until Sunday. So I asked Erestor if he knew what Glorfindel would do, but the best he could suggest was an outdated Vanyarin religious curse that Glorfindel is fond of using. 

Then I broke down and started complaining about living here with Elrohir. Erestor listened nicely and said he would call round tomorrow to see if there was anything he could do to help. I said that would be good. We talked for about an hour before I decided I ought to go and try to get the party under control. The music had reached a frightening volume and the floor was starting to vibrate. 

No sooner had I stepped out from my bedroom than I saw at least eight Avari and a few other regular Elves holding beer and hanging about in the corridor and on the stairs. I took Erestor's advice and said, "_Nai velcar Valinoron ortuvar ar matuvar cuilelya nauca!_" but they just kind of looked at me and didn't do anything. Religious curses aren't good for anything these days! I gave up and went back into my room. I'm planning to sit here for the rest of the night. Elrohir hasn't noticed my absence yet, so the outlook is good. 

January 18th 

The house can be called fully liveable now that we have a kitchen sink. Erestor came round this morning, took one look at our squalid filth-hole, none the better after last night's party (which didn't end until half five when the police arrived to shoo everyone home), and said, "We're going shopping." We went to Ikea and bought an area rug, room lamps, cutlery, curtains, a desk, slipcovers for the ratty old sofa and chairs, shelving units, a set of small tables, two mirrors, and several decorative items like candles and picture frames. Then we went to Home Hardware and bought the sink, light switch covers that aren't broken, and new taps for the shower. Erestor put it all on his Visa without a second thought. I think Glorfindel must be right about the millionaire thing. 

We brought it all home and got it all set up. The sink leaks a bit, but Erestor is not a plumber so I can't really complain. He told us to make lists of everything we need so we can go out shopping again tomorrow, so I made the following list:   
*coat hangers   
*air freshener candles   
*houseplants   
*real bed   
*bathmat   
*toothbrush holder   
*space heater 

Elrohir's was somewhat different. I'm not exactly sure what he's planning on doing with all of it, but he made a list consisting of:   
*bucket   
*rope   
*pulley   
*ladder   
*crates   
*string lights   
*plywood   
*2x4s   
*nails   
*pool mattress   
*paint   
*spray paint   
*bean bag chair   
*pillows   
*old trees   
*big tyre   
*tiles   
*glue 

I really hope he manages to contain all this stuff to his own room. 

January 19th 

Erestor either bought or found everything on the lists. Even the big tyre for Elrohir. I am quite impressed. I really wanted to thank him properly but my new bed is not assembled yet and the camp bed is highly unstable, so we had to settle for being somewhat intimate on the slipcovered sofa while Elrohir was out in the back yard digging up sand for the iguana habitat and chatting with the Avari. 

There was also an email from Legolas today: 

-----   
From: "*Legolas*" legolas3000@royals.mk>   
Subject: Lorien!!! 

Hi!!! We're in Lorine now at your grandma's   
house. She's very nice and gave us good   
snacks but she also keeps touching everyone's   
bums. You should tell her it's not polite to   
touch people's bums. Lorien is very small   
compared to Mirkwood but the trees are bigger   
but they are also farther apart so I think   
there are fewer trees. 

The Elves here are very weird and talk funny.   
I met one named Haldir who kept accidently   
tripping me but then a nut fell on his head   
from out of one of the big trees. We had to   
sleep in a tree on a platform!! It was like   
being in an army movie. Boromir was scared he   
might fall of the edge so he had to sleep   
between me and Aragorn and share my blanket   
and pillow because his fell off the edge and   
landed on a big mushroom. 

I don't know how long we will stay here.   
Maybe a long time. Gandalf fell in a hole   
and now nobody knows what to do. 

*LEGOLAS*   
----- 

I wonder if Gandalf is injured? I wish Legolas would've said how big the hole was, and if Gandalf twisted his ankle or anything. 

January 20th 

Erestor came by after work today to help try out the new bed. It works quite well. He also brought a DVD of some mindless Gondorian action movie that we could pretend to watch, but that worked less well. Elrohir insisted on watching the movie with us, which wouldn't have been so bad had he not sat himself directly between Erestor and me. About halfway through Erestor got up to fetch a Coke and sat next to me when he came back. But less than ten minutes later, Elrohir went to make popcorn and then sat back down between us again. 

Either he has been hired by dad to keep Erestor and me apart and is terribly clever in his innocent sneakiness, or he is dumb as a bag of hammers and doesn't realise how infuriating his inconsiderate seating arrangements are. With Elrohir, it's hard to tell. 

January 21st 

Today Elrohir asked me what I want for my birthday. Mine is the only birthday he ever remembers, since it's the same day as his. He can never remember dad's or Erestor's, even though they both share a birthday too (March 22nd). He doesn't remember that Arwen's is May 12th, Grandma's is October 10th, Grandpa's is March 16th, and Aragorn's is August 26th. I know all of these because they are in my computer's date book. Nobody knows Glorfindel's birthday, not even Glorfindel, but he figures it's probably sometime around the beginning of August. Therefore he celebrates his birthday every year on the first Saturday in August, to maximise partying potential. 

I told Elrohir I hadn't though much about birthday gifts, even though I probably should since our birthday is in ten days. He told me he wants a cat. I think the only reason he had for asking me what I want is to make sure he had a chance to tell me what he wants. 

January 22nd 

Elrohir is doing something in his bedroom. It involves lots of banging. I tried to peer up through the hole to see what was going on, but he had it covered. All I know is that he took everything Erestor got him from the list and hauled it in there. What he's actually doing with it is a mystery. A very loud mystery that is preventing me from having a nap or watching telly. 

January 23rd 

The banging stopped at about 10 last night, but Elrohir was still up until three or so dragging things around. Now he's sweeping up the mess and tossing unneeded things out the window into the back yard. I still have no idea what he's doing and he refuses to show me until it's finished. 

A large portion of carpet just went flying out the window and landed on the deck. I might have to go and put a stop to this nonsense. 

Elrohir just yelled down through the hole asking me if we had any sandpaper. I said no. He's using a Brillo pad instead; I passed it up to him in a bucket. I note he has the bucket-pulley system installed. 

I wonder if the landlord knows he's doing all this? 

Oh well. At least the internet guy finally called round to hook up our DSL. Now I can ignore Elrohir's shoddy construction job in favour of watching flash animation cartoons online. 

January 24th 

Elrohir showed me his bedroom. It looks exactly like something he would do. 

He has built himself a new bed out of the plywood and 2x4s. The only thing is, it's situated diagonally across one corner of the room, four feet up the wall. Rather like a bunk bed with no bottom bunk. He uses the ladder to get up to it. At least it seems sturdy enough, though, with more 2x4s used to hold it up. The old trees form decorative columns. He's used a few sheets to section off a little fort in the space underneath the bed, and filled that space with pillows. 

Shelving units made of old wooden crates line the walls, and strings of Fiommereth lights hang festively above the crates. There is a tyre swing in one corner. But perhaps strangest of all, he's for some reason tiled all the area within a two foot radius of the hole. I guess to facilitate his bucket-and-pulley setup, but I'm not sure how. It looks a bit peculiar, to say the least. 

I must've been staring with my mouth hanging open in shock, because Elrohir looked nervous and said, "What?" I said, "It's very original." He perked up a bit at that, enough to grab my hand and drag me over to the under-bed fort. He said, "Look, now we have our own secret hideout!" 

I mentioned that since we have our own house, a secret hideout within that same house is somewhat redundant. We can hide out just as secretly in the living room or the kitchen, after all. He looked hurt and said, "But this is *fun*!" He then got out the iguana, fetched a bag of Doritos, and pulled over the crate with the television and Nintendo on it to demonstrate just how much fun can be had while sitting under the bed. 

Really, I don't suppose that the fun that can be had in an under-bed fort differs from the sort of fun that can potentially be had in the living room in any significant way. But still I ended up sitting in Elrohir's fort for the better part of five hours, watching him play Nintendo and eat Doritos with an iguana on his head just so I wouldn't hurt his feelings. I was almost rescued halfway through hour four when the telephone rang, but Elrohir had hijacked the cordless and, upon checking the call display, declared that it was nobody important and refused to answer. 

I am starting to seriously suspect that he might be insane. I am tempted to print off one of those on-line psychiatric tests and try to con him into taking it. 

January 25th 

I spent most of today in Elrohir's fort. He seems unwilling to let me leave. He's been bringing me tea and other insubstantial refreshments all day as I lie watching bad television. Sometimes he sits very close and pets my hair while talking to me in the same voice he uses to talk to the iguana. 

Around supper time (Elrohir brought me a box of soda biscuits and a carrot to eat) the telephone rang, but again it was "nobody important". I really wish I knew who this nobody was. If he or she was anyone more important than Legolas, I'm going to be very upset. 

January 26th 

Elrohir is surely insane. He made me sleep in the fort with him last night, clinging to my shoulders as if I were about to try and escape any second. Which I probably would have done, had he not been clinging to me. Though I did get him to leave the house for a short while this morning, to run down to the corner store and get some juice. While he was gone, "nobody important", better known as Erestor, rang and had a good complain about how he's been trying to get hold of me for three days. 

Erestor is in a panic. Dad is in a panic. The office is in an uproar. The government will soon cease to function. And all because Glorfindel quit his job. Quit his job! Just like that! He walked in on Friday morning and announced that it was his last day. Preliminary reports give account of how dad yelled things on a theme of disbelief, then swore, then pleaded with Glorfindel to stay at least until the end of June when the year-end accounts are done. But Glorfindel would have none of that. He spent the better part of Friday afternoon cleaning out his desk and erasing all questionable temporary internet files and bookmarks from Netscape. Then he spent the better part of Friday night cleaning out his bedroom, since dad has evicted him. 

So now Erestor has to do Glorfindel's job, and dad and Lindir share Erestor's job while also doing their own. Erestor used to be Glorfindel's assistant, and worked as chief accountant for the Government of Lindon for a while, so he knows what to do. I asked him why Glorfindel quit, but he didn't know. Then I asked him where Glorfindel went, but he didn't know that either. So for all we know Glorfindel could have run off to Valinor by now, with no warning! That seems like something he would do. 

When Elrohir got back I was on the telephone trying to reach Glorfindel's mobile, but his number was unavailable. Elrohir gave me a stern look for daring to come downstairs. I tried to explain the situation about Glorfindel being missing and homeless, but Elrohir said that Glorfindel has a platinum Visa and is probably at this moment sipping room service cocktails in the Jacuzzi at a five star hotel. He is probably right. That sounds much more like Glorfindel than sleeping in a pile of newspaper under a bridge. 

I will have to keep trying his mobile though, just in case. When Elrohir lets me leave the fort again. Right now he is downstairs with two of the Avarin neighbours attempting to invent supper. I was hoping they'd at least make some weird Avarin food like bannock and venison stew, but I think they're doing Hamburger Helper. How boring. What's the point of having Avarin neighbours if they act just like everyone else? 

January 27th 

The Avari called round again today for lunch, helping Elrohir to make grilled cheese sandwiches and vegetable soup from a tin. He's spending an awful lot of time with them lately. If he's not careful, he's going to end up listening to rap music. He already wears huge trousers, so the danger is very real. 

The one that I think is Agladir tried to talk to me while lunch was being made. He talked about regular everyday things like television and movies. I was a bit disappointed to see no indications of Avarin culture whatsoever, and I mentioned this. He asked if I'd rather he talk about canoes and totem poles and fur trapping and I said yes, that would make for an interesting conversation. 

Then he said, "Sure, I'll talk about that if you tell me all about mining jewels and forging weapons and swearing oaths to your Valar, since being Noldorin you'd know all about those things, right?" 

I told him that I hardly thought so, and that such vague historical stereotypes were in no way relevant to modern Noldorin society. But he didn't seem to get the point, since he then gestured at my GHU tee-shirt and said, "Did you kill a Telerin guy and take that from him? Or do you only steal ships?" 

Honestly! Some people are so rude and ignorant! After assuring Agladir that no, I paid full price minus twenty percent for the tee-shirt at a legitimate GHU campus shop, I went upstairs. And I am not going back down until they leave. Perhaps Elrohir did have the right idea with this constant staying-in-the-fort business. 

I did manage to get hold of Glorfindel though. He was in bed at the Hotel Eriador eating grapefruit and watching pay-per-view. I tried to get his room number so that I could escape to join him in paradise, but he said that Aralindë was on her way over due to some sort of emergency, and he hung up almost right away. It is just like him to abandon my in my hour of need, even after I helped him with all that letter-writing and telephoning to Valmar! We'll see if I ever do that again. 

January 28th 

Elrohir is hanging around with the Avari. That seems to be all they ever do. They hang around next to, lean against, or sit on things. Right now they are out on the deck next door, sitting, leaning, and hanging around. Despite the cold, Elrohir is stretched out on a blanket in his shorts, trying to get a tan so he looks more like them. They are listening to rap music. I fear for Elrohir's future. 

I tried ringing Glorfindel again, but he only said, "Look Elladan, I have a few problems to work out and can't really talk right now," and hung up just like that. Then I tried Erestor, but he wasn't at his desk. Dad was at Erestor's desk, though, so I talked to him for a while. He asked me what I want for my birthday. I said a new Teflon fry-pan would be nice. The one we have now Elrohir found in the garage, and it's all scratched-up and things stick to it. He also asked me what Elrohir wanted. I said, "Artificial intelligence." 

January 29th 

It has come to my attention that it is socially impossible for Elves to live in groups of anything less than four. We live with parents, siblings, children, friends, cousins, and so forth. Parents whose children have moved away to other groups usually return to live with their own parents. All of Aragorn's friends that I've met live either alone or in pairs, but Elves always live in groups. Elrohir and I tried living just as a two, but I suppose we count as Elves because now we are part of a four. 

I had hopes that today would be a day where nothing happened, since I've not had one of those nothing days for a while, and chances were looking good. But then at five Glorfindel showed up on the doorstep with a collection of suitcases and his *pregnant girlfriend*. I just knew this would happen! The entire function of heterosexual people getting it on is to produce small Elves, so I don't know why they act so surprised when nature takes its course. I'd think they would have figured it out by now. 

Glorfindel explained using very few words that Aralindë had to leave her house due to difficulties between her and her parents over this matter. She was clever enough to carefully dispose of the home pregnancy test kit while leaving the box it came in sitting on the back of the toilet. As a result, the two of them need a place to stay. I don't recall actually giving permission before he started hauling things inside and commandeering the sofa. I was about to complain when Elrohir came back inside from another tanning session singing something about his name being "the real Slim Shady". He looked dead pleased to see that Glorfindel was moving in. Maybe Glorfindel's presence will influence him back toward wanting to be a Vanya and away from this Avari nonsense. 

I can hope, at least. Elrohir has abandoned his deck buddies in favour of looking from the kitchen doorway at Glorfindel, who is sitting on the sofa trying (and failing) to comfort a sobbing Aralindë. She refuses to cry on his shoulder because her tears and snively nose, not to mention all the runny makeup, will ruin his dry-clean-only rayon shirt. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that having them live here will drive me batty. 

January 30th 

I will be 2910 years old tomorrow. I don't feel much older than 2500, though. When dad was my age, he'd already been governing Rivendell for well over 1000 years. I don't think my life thus far is much of a comparison. Though maybe I can chalk it all up to dad being a keener. 

When I went downstairs Aralindë was busy at work making breakfast. She seems to be adapting remarkably well to her impending future as a homemaker, marrying Glorfindel and having ignorant babies. Glorfindel was just laying on the sofa looking tired and overwhelmed. He'd taken off his rayon shirt, but I guess Aralindë is done crying for now (actually she looked disturbingly happy) because I didn't see any mascara smudges on him. 

I talked to dad at noon, and he said he'd made arrangements for him and me and Elrohir and Arwen to go out for birthday supper tomorrow at a fancy restaurant. I told him we'd be better off just going to some cheap place that has chicken fingers, which is all Elrohir ever orders anyhow, but he said he already made reservations at Whitesides. 

Whitesides means of course that we're going to have to get all dressed up in our formal stupid clothes. And I don't think anyone realises just how much I dislike Elf clothes. Really I'd be far more comfortable in a shirt and sport coat borrowed from Glorfindel, but Whitesides is expensive enough to require the whole velvet and brocade extravaganza with long drapey parts that dangle in the mud and huge sleeves that are entirely impractical when eating anything that includes sauce. Unfortunately Arwen loves these formal outfits, and guess who dad listens to most of the time? 

I asked Glorfindel if he had any proper Elf clothes I could borrow, since mine are all still at dad's and I don't want to have to drive all the way across town just for the sake of some stiff uncomfortable outfit. After a few minutes of digging through suitcases he came up with a slightly wrinkled dull green ensemble (100% rayon). I guess it'll have to do. With any luck everyone will be looking at Arwen anyhow and won't pay any attention to what I'm wearing. 

January 31st (Birthday) 

I woke up this morning to the realisation that I hadn't bought Elrohir a birthday present. Also to the sound of a funny noise outside. I tried to go back to sleep and dream up a suitable present, but the noise wouldn't stop. It sounded a bit like a homemade car alarm. So I went downstairs and outside to discover a small brownish kitten sitting on the pavement in front of the house. It looked up at me and made the noise. If I had to guess from its voice I'd say this kitten had ancestors that were finches and ducks. 

I picked up the kitten and brought it inside, and gave it a bit of half and half in a yoghurt lid. That made the noise stop. Then I took it upstairs to ask Elrohir what we should do, but that was a big mistake. He took one sleepy look at the noisy kitten and said, "A cat! You got me a cat!" I'd forgotten that's what he'd asked for. He took the kitten and snuggled it into bed with him, despite the fact that it had just come in off the street and was probably filthy. He named it Beep, after the noise it makes. 

I asked if Beep had a secret name like Dr. Green/Gil-galad the iguana, but he just looked at me warily and said, "Maybe." Then he went to the closet and got me my present, which was a collection of previously-viewed DVDs and VHS tapes of obscure foreign movies. Some of them look interesting and well-done, but I think Elrohir plans to make me watch all of them while sitting in his fort with the iguana (and now the cat). 

At five dad and Arwen came to collect us for dinner. They hadn't had the pleasure of coming to see us at the new house yet, so I gave them a short tour while Elrohir frantically snooped through Glorfindel's clothes looking for something to wear. Glorfindel was hiding in the bathroom at the time. He and dad are not speaking. 

Dad looked around sadly at the cracked plaster and dirty lino and said, "Well, I guess if you're happy here..." It took considerable willpower to stop myself from clinging to him and refusing to let go until he agreed to take me back to our real house and forbid me from ever leaving home again. In fact I probably would have become clingy had Elrohir not right then discovered a horribly outdated purple poncho-like monstrosity with silver trim. He threw it on over his shiny red jeans and announced himself ready to go. Dad shook his head but said nothing. Arwen said, "Daaa-aad! He can't wear that!" but did nothing. Elrohir grinned happily and walked out to the car. 

Supper itself was fairly uneventful. Dad found a hair in his food, but then again he always does whenever we go out to eat. Elrohir was impressed that the restaurant had Diet Dr. Pepper. He drank five glasses and went to the biff twice. Arwen tried to be sophisticated by ordering something with a weird name, but ended up eating half of Elrohir's chicken fingers. I dropped a prawn in my lap and it got lost among the endless folds of Glorfindel's outfit. Then dad gave us our presents: a Teflon fry-pan for me, and a book of pie recipes for Elrohir. 

When dad dropped us home again he didn't come into the house. He has a low tolerance for squalor, I think. It was just as well because when I walked through the front door the first thing I saw was Glorfindel and Aralindë being moderately R-rated on the sofa. Glorfindel yelled, "Manwë's pants, don't you ever knock?!" to which I replied, "It's my house!" Glorfindel flopped over with an exasperated sort of sigh and Aralindë looked at the floor while pulling a blanket up to her neck. Elrohir said, as he went up the stairs, "Get a room!" 

At this Glorfindel's head popped back up and he had a peculiar expression on his face. He said, "Alright, I will!" Then he got up from the sofa, zipped his trousers, and fetched his chequebook. He handed me a substantial cheque and said, "That should more than cover half the rent. I am now in charge of half of the house and half of the bedrooms herein." Before I could think of what to do he was upstairs dumping everything from my bedroom into the corridor! When I shouted for him to stop, he simply pointed to Elrohir's room and said, "You live in there now." Of all the nerve! 

And I expected Elrohir to at least be somewhat opposed to this new arrangement. But for some reason he's thrilled to be sleeping in the fort while I occupy the bed. Great! This is just great! And some birthday it's turned out to be! A dirty noisy cat, Glorfindel's ill-fitting clothes, a family restaurant experience I could have done without, and now eviction *from my own bedroom*! I don't see how this can get much worse. 

Actually I do. Elrohir just turned on the Nintendo. He has an iguana on his head and a kitten in his lap and is singing along with the Mario music. And he keeps peering up at me with a goofy smile every time he kills a koopa. I think I will soon go crazy. I will have to document the experience well so that when I finally do go, everyone will know exactly who to blame. 

* * *

NOTES: The word "mithi" should be translated as a sort of slang word for the Calaquendi. The Avari here use it as the Elvish equivalent to "whitey". 

Glorfindel's religious curse translates as, "May the flames of Valinor rise up and consume your twisted life". 


	5. Home for the Holidays 5

  
February 2nd  
  
Unable to stand my home life, I spent the weekend with Erestor. Or at least I tried to. We went out to a movie last night only get back to dad's house and discover Elrohir had invited himself over. He and dad were attempting an apple-cherry pie from the new recipe book. As soon as we walked into the kitchen to see what was going on (I'm sure they conspired to lure us in with the smell of pie) Elrohir went all happy and announced that, since we were all together, we should have a family television night. This of course appealed to Arwen, who is into all that dumb family stuff, and dad, who complains that he never sees us enough when we are around but then makes no effort to visit when we aren't.  
  
So Erestor and I were forced into watching two hours of bad sitcoms on cable. We tried ignoring the telly and my strange family for a while, but that only resulted in dad making disapproving noises and turning the lights on really bright and Elrohir saying, in a parental-type voice, "Elladan, this is supposed to be *family* night." They all looked very self-righteous in a Readers Digest sort of way. Arwen was seated on the floor while Elrohir, cuddled up with dad, plaited her hair.  
  
After a while Erestor got up, saying he was going to the bathroom, but he never came back. I tried the same thing but dad was too smart to fall for it. It was an hour and a half of made-for-telly crappiness before Erestor and I were reunited. And we actually had about eight hours alone together (a new record, I'm sure) before we were interrupted by dad pretending he needed to talk to Erestor about something that probably didn't exist. At that point we gave up on quality time and Erestor simply drove me home.  
  
At home, Glorfindel was sitting on the sofa wearing a bathrobe and eating noodles. He looked rather on-edge. Aralindë was bringing him tea on a tray. I asked what he did to warrant this sort of royal treatment, and Aralindë explained that he cut his hand on the serrated metal part of the Glad Cling-Wrap box while trying to cover a bowl of lima beans, and he needed special care. While helping him drink the tea she accidentally spilled some down his bathrobe. He yelled at her, she started crying, and right then I felt a headache coming on.  
  
Even though it was only half two, I already knew that the rest of the day just wasn't going to be worth staying up for. So I went to sleep, and woke up a while later. The first thing I saw was Elrohir sitting in the middle of the floor playing Spider Solitaire on my computer, wearing a pink tee-shirt that said "Playful Pussy". I went back to sleep. I woke up again some time later to Elrohir poking me and saying something about a groundhog seeing its shadow. I didn't want to even think about what that meant, so I went back to sleep. This has officially been the worst Sunday I can remember in a long time.  
  
Relative level of insanity: 84%  
Cause of insanity: Elrohir 60%, other family 25%, Glorfindel 15%  
  
February 3rd  
  
When I woke up this morning, it was to the noise of Aralindë whining that she didn't want to go to school and Glorfindel demanding that she give him back his car keys. As a result, I didn't feel inclined toward getting out of bed. So I didn't, except once to cross the room to the bucket-and-pulley setup and have Elrohir pass me up some Pop Tarts and lemonade, and then twice to go to the biff. It worked out alright. I didn't really miss the outside world at all. I may try the same thing tomorrow on an ongoing experimental basis.  
  
Relative level of insanity: 75%  
Cause of insanity: Glorfindel 80%, inescapable bodily functions 20%  
  
February 4th  
  
I had to get out of bed today. Elrohir decided he wanted to join me, and he kept squirming and wiggling and clinging to my arm and getting his hands tangled in my hair. It just wasn't worth the hassle. So I went downstairs hoping to spend the day on the sofa watching television, but Glorfindel was seated at the coffee table trying to work out something on graph paper. I asked him what he was doing and he said that, given local mill rates and assessed land values we were paying approximately 13.8% too much for our rent. I think he misses being an accountant. I asked if he did, but he just looked down at the his calculations and muttered something about T3 forms.  
  
Then I asked why he quit his job. He said the idea came to him one day when he was sitting in the lunch room. Lindir asked him how long he'd been an accountant, and he had to work it out on his adding machine. Over 6800 years! It was then he realised he didn't even want to be an accountant in the first place and he'd wasted most of his life stuck behind graph paper, adding machines and, in recent years, spreadsheet software. He has scars on his fingers from centuries of paper cuts.  
  
I decided that it might be best to simply leave the house altogether and go for a walk, so I walked all the way downtown for lunch. By the time I got back, Aralindë was home from school, Elrohir was out of bed, and Glorfindel was on some long rant about clothes. He has made the stunning observation that male fashion is boring; all we ever wear is either jeans and tee-shirts or pleated trousers and button-up shirts, occasionally with suit jackets, while girls get all sorts of fun things like long skirts, short skirts, tight jeans, stretchy shirts, blouses, dresses, and so forth, in a multitude of colours.  
  
I think he might be right on this. Looking around, it was easy to notice that Aralindë's plaid skirt over fishnets with a tight sparkly shirt and jean jacket was far more interesting that Glorfindel's grey rayon trousers and red button-up shirt or my black jeans with black tee-shirt. Actually Elrohir might have been more interesting since he was sitting on the sofa wearing blue underoos and a race-car blanket, but that doesn't really count.  
  
Aralindë asked Glorfindel what sort of clothes he'd rather have, and he got out an old National Geographic and pointed to a photograph of Elves on the streets of Valmar. To me it looked like they were wearing pyjamas, but I didn't say anything. Aralindë said she could make something like that, and Glorfindel eyed her suspiciously until she explained that the one class in which she actually did well was home economics. They're going to the fabric shop tomorrow to get materials for Glorfindel's Vanyarin clothes. Elrohir asked Aralindë if she could make him a monkey costume. She said she'd think about it.  
  
Relative level of insanity: 51%  
Cause of insanity: Elrohir 35%, cat pee on jacket 65%  
  
February 5th  
  
I had to get out of bed before eight today. Elrohir kept attacking me. I really think I need to get him a scratching post or something.  
  
We all ended up going to the fabric shop. Elrohir wanted to go to try and get fabric for his monkey costume and I decided to go because there was nothing better to do, so we piled into Glorfindel's car and went to collect Aralindë from school. Then we headed to Festive Fabric.  
  
The shop was full of grandmotherly types buying patches for quilts and young mothers hauling around yelling children. Aralindë and Glorfindel immediately wandered off to look at patterns, leaving Elrohir and me alone and confused in the fleece section. Elrohir found some fleece with neon monkeys on it that he thought would be good for his monkey costume. I tried to explain that a monkey costume would probably be better just made out of plain brown fleece since monkeys are plain brown and not printed with neon images of themselves, but he didn't seem to understand that.  
  
It took Glorfindel two hours to pick out a pattern he liked, find suitable fabric, and pay for it. I'm sure he would have taken longer, but the shop was closing. In that time Elrohir managed to knock over a table of flannelette, lose his wallet in a button bin, get a separating zipper caught in his hair, and unroll an entire bolt of vinyl into a pile on the floor. The shop manager eventually had to make him stand outside. He never did get fabric for his monkey costume, though he did steal a scrap out of the dustbin to make a vest for the iguana.  
  
Relative level of insanity: 58%  
Cause of insanity: Elrohir 100%  
  
February 6th  
  
When Elrohir and I were younger and had to share a room on occasion, he would frequently keep me awake all night talking or playing stupid little games. He seems to have reverted back to that level. He was up for a good hour last night getting me to help him list off all the edible plants of the world, starting off with the easy ones like carrots and apples and moving along to strange things like sphagnum moss, which I would argue isn't edible at all. I tried to pretend to be asleep more than once but he kept going. At one point he was silent for a good twenty minutes and I though he was finished, but then he quickly stood up, poked me, and said in a triumphant voice, "Hey Elladan! *Dillweed*!"  
  
Everything just went downhill from there. I got little sleep, and in the morning Glorfindel started worrying about his mum again while simultaneously complaining that the Miruvor in our fridge tastes suspiciously like McCain peach punch concentrate mixed with cooking brandy and Incrediberry Kool-Aid. Then Elrohir kept walking in on me while I was trying to have a bath and then leaving the door open. Really, the only good thing that happened all day was that Aralindë stayed late after school in the home ec lab to work on Glorfindel's new outfit, so I didn't have to put up with her until seven. But then when she came home she started a fight by accusing Glorfindel of stealing her Nivea cream. The fighting I can handle- it's the apology smooching that really makes me want to kick something.  
  
Relative level of insanity: 90%  
Cause of Insanity: Elrohir 51%, Glorfindel & Aralindë 49%  
  
February 7th  
  
Elrohir disappeared today. He was gone when I got up and wasn't around all day. But then he randomly appeared again in time for supper, so I suppose there's really nothing to worry about.  
  
But without Elrohir to distract me all day, I was forced to pay more attention than usual to Glorfindel, and he was being crazy. The cut on his hand from the Glad Cling Wrap box had gone nasty since he tried to disinfect it with tonic water, so he was leaning over the sink attempting to perform some sort of fixing operation with one of Aralindë's sewing pins and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. I instinctively knew this wasn't the brightest thing to be doing, and I offered to drive him to the walk-in mediclinic, but he refused. This is what they did back during the First World War, he said.  
  
I was certain that Glorfindel hadn't actually been *in* the war, so I asked him about it. He pshawed me and said that he'd seen action at Angband back in the day. Still suspicious, I rang Erestor. He confirmed that Glorfindel had indeed seen action at Angband, but he had only seen it, not participated. Glorfindel's war experience, according to Erestor, involved showing up with a government convoy to take inventory, getting sick at the sights and smells, meeting Maedhros, and throwing up on his boot. I asked Erestor if this was reliable information. Erestor said yes, he heard it from Gil-galad who heard it from Círdan who heard it from Finrod who heard it from Turgon who heard it from Fingon who was right there when it happened.  
  
When I asked Glorfindel he denied everything. He was still standing at the sink, poking himself with the pin and cursing Glad boxes everywhere. I can't really imagine him throwing up on a General, but then I also can't imagine him actually doing anything useful in a war. So I'm not sure what to believe.  
  
Relative level of Insanity: 50%  
Cause of Insanity: Glorfindel 40%, Erestor 40%, Elrohir 20%  
  
February 8th  
  
No sign of Elrohir all of today either. I wonder what he's up to? He could be out partying it up with Aragorn's friends again, hurling himself off the flatbed of a fast-moving half-ton onto a pile of flaming two-by-fours propped up against a wheelie bin for all I know. He did that a few years ago and had Halbarad make a videotape.  
  
I tried to spend more time with Glorfindel, since Aralindë was at the school working on his Vanya costume. He was eating a box of brandy beans and watching reruns of That Second Age Show on channel eight. I attempted a conversation and suggest we do something, even go to the park and feed the ducks, but he kept shushing me. So I gave up and rang Erestor. He wasn't home. Dad was home, but he was busy rearranging the living room furniture with Arwen. Nobody in this stupid city ever wants to do anything!  
  
Relative level of insanity: 76%  
Cause of insanity: Everybody who isn't me 100%  
  
February 9th  
  
I talked to grandpa for a while today. Very simple things amuse grandpa. He's content to just put a bean in a pot and grow a begonia. In fact, he told me all about his new begonias, which are just starting to sprout. I let him talk for twenty minutes. I had nothing better to do.  
  
Next I talked to grandma. She asked me how my love life was going. I said it was excellent. She didn't seem to catch the sarcasm. Then she said she sent Elrohir and me Melevellar gifts in the post that should be arriving any day now. I sincerely hope it's regular little chocolate hearts and candies, and not something that I will have to hide.  
  
I also rang Erestor, but he had gone to the Legion with dad to drink. I wonder if he realises that he's actually supposed to make an effort to talk to me sometimes?  
  
Relative level of insanity: 60%  
Cause of insanity: Overwhelming boredom 70%, Erestor 30%  
  
February 10th  
  
Glorfindel insisted I come shopping with him today. We went to a girly underthings shop. Glorfindel explained that he needed to find a Melevellar gift for Aralindë and required the expert advice of Erestor and me. Really, he couldn't have picked worse shopping companions. I don't know the first thing about girl panties and Erestor just has lamentable fashion tastes all around. He still wears shoes with tassels. Also he was upset at having been dragged out of work, so was even less help than usual. But Glorfindel never does anything that makes sense or seems reasonable. I ought to have learned by now not to question or even think about his eccentricities. I'll just have to start smiling and nodding.  
  
The first thing the shop assistant (her nametag read "Annis") asked was what we were looking for. Glorfindel didn't really know. Something sexy for his girlfriend, he said. Annis said she could recommend a few things, and asked what size. Glorfindel didn't know that either. He said smallish and made a vaguely Aralindë-shaped gesture with his hands. Then he picked up a lacy red bra with feathery bits and said he liked it. Annis told him that bras come in a whole variety of sizes and really should be picked out to fit properly by the person who is going to wear them. Glorfindel frowned and asked why they didn't just have any that came in small, medium, and large. At about this point Erestor had wandered away to look at the bath robes. I wanted to join him but Glorfindel was standing firmly in the way.  
  
I could tell that Annis was getting a bit frustrated explaining to Glorfindel that bras aren't something one can really buy on a whim- they have to be tried on so they fit right. Glorfindel said, "Well it's not like she's going to be *wearing* it for very long so it doesn't *have* to fit perfectly!" I think this was the wrong thing to say, since Annis seemed to be a bit of a feminist. She narrowed her eyes and said that bras are meant to be comfortable, not to be gawked at by sexist males. Glorfindel rubbed his forehead, tried to calm down, and quietly explained that his girlfriend was in high school, and what bra size to high school girls usually buy?  
  
I think this was an even worse thing to say, because Annis gave him a look that made it clear she thought him a dangerous perverted paedophile who should be locked away forever (which is about halfway right). She snapped, "I don't think we have anything for you here," and turned her back. We left after that and went to the sex shop a few blocks away. Glorfindel purchased a pink vinyl bra with zippers in odd places, size small. It looks about right to me, but I don't think Aralindë's bosom is quite that large. She may have to fill it out with Kleenex.  
  
Relative level of insanity: 50%  
Cause of insanity: Girly underthings 100%  
  
February 11th  
  
Elrohir is being odd lately. I mean, apart from the usual oddness like showing up in my bed unexpectedly and wearing a home-made tee-shirt that says "Elrohir's School of Awesomeness", which comes to be part of everyday life when dealing with Elrohir. This time it's odd as in never being home during daylight hours. I'm starting to worry, and I just know he's up to something. And Glorfindel's up to something too. Now that Aralindë's finished his Vanya costume, he's taken it upon himself to teach her the goings-on of his religion. It's complicated and involves too many words that I can't pronounce, so I've stopped paying attention. But just the way he talks about it makes me suspect that the Vanyar are secretly controlling the world, possibly through a mass marketing scheme of blond hair dyes that don't work.   
  
I was going to ring dad and tell him that Elrohir's been disappearing on a regular basis, but then I stopped myself when I couldn't figure out what "regular basis" meant. Does five days in a row count? How many days make up a "regular basis" anyhow?  
  
Relative level of insanity: 40%  
Cause of insanity: Perplexing schemes 70%, peculiar idioms 30%  
  
February 12th  
  
It all started off with a strange telephone conversation with Ardlor today. He claimed to be downtown working on a new movie. I've not talked to him in months, so he must've been really bored on the set to think of contacting me. But still I had nothing better to do so I went down to see him. He was sitting on a lawn chair on the pavement beside a trailer that had his name on the door, though I almost didn't recognise him because his hair was blond. A girl with a long pigtail was handing him a Fanta.  
  
To paraphrase his very long explanation, some wacko director from Mirkwood is dong a made-for-telly movie about Ingwë, and Ardlor is starring. It's a disaster so far. The second AD was fired this morning, and there simply aren't enough blond extras around to fill the entire palace set with adoring onlookers. Just as he said that an ornery-looking Elf came over and started ranting that he had just had a fight with someone named Gilistui over wardrobe issues and now they didn't have a Fëanor.  
  
The ornery one turned out to be Maethor, the director, which I learned when he turned to me with manic eyes and said, "You! You can act! You're my new Fëanor!" I calmly said that no, I can't act, and no, I'm not his new Fëanor, but then I wished I hadn't said that because it set him off on some sort of wild rage. He screamed that I'd been harassing him for the past week about getting a bit part and there's no way he'd let me escape now that he was desperate. The whole scene really made no sense whatsoever until I saw Elrohir walk up a few feet away, wearing an orange traffic control vest and informing passing motorists that they can't come in this way.  
  
I can't accurately say what exactly happened next, but somehow, after all the artistic temperamental screaming ended, I wound up in the orange vest and Elrohir got his name stuck on a trailer door. I think I'm a locations PA, even though I'm not sure what that is. I hope it only involves telling cars they can't drive where I'm standing. Right now I'm not really coherent enough to manage anything more than that.  
  
Relative level of insanity: too frazzled to tell  
Cause of Insanity: Maethor (in particular his eyes and voice ) 100%  
  
February 13th  
  
I had to get up at 6 this morning to be on location by 7-30. And I don't even want to work on this stupid movie! I went to ask Glorfindel if he was interested in taking my place, but he wasn't in his usual spot on the sofa. The telly was on without him though, which was strange.  
  
The entire day was spent walking around outside in the rain, wearing that stupid orange vest, while Elrohir sat in his trailer and went over the script. He didn't even have to do anything, since they don't start shooting his scenes until tomorrow! And I didn't get to see anyone famous while standing around getting wet and waving at cars. Not even Ardlor. He was inside on the set all day being dry and comfortable in his Ingwë costume.  
  
The rain stopped around eight, which was conveniently just as we were wrapping for the day. By the time I got home it was quarter past nine, and I was just about to flop over onto the sofa and die of exhaustion when Elrohir bounced in, followed by Maethor. They were doing some sort of impromptu Fëanor audition by way of watching the old tape of Elrohir's performance as Maeglin in our high school "Fall of Gondolin" production. Maethor sat just where I was going to flop, asked me to get him a drink, and proceeded to watch Elrohir's crappy video with unbridled adoration. "Brilliant!" he said. "Fantastic!" Elrohir grinned stupidly. Maethor was about to get on his mobile to ring the script supervisor to tell her to increase Fëanor's role when Glorfindel came downstairs.  
  
Glorfindel was wearing his gold satin pyjama shorts and a matching shirt, unbuttoned. Maethor took one look at his golden splendour and squealed, "You! You're perfect!" Glorfindel warily asked what for. Maethor explained the whole stupid Ingwë movie with great enthusiasm. Glorfindel looked disappointed and said he didn't want anything to do with it. I think he was hoping for a role in a porno. Maethor looked crushed. The only actual Vanya in town snubbed his crummy movie-of-the-week. Which is probably for the best, since I was reading over a bit of Elrohir's script and it's even worse than that movie about Aegnor somebody was making here last year. I'd be embarrassed to be associated with it if I were Glorfindel. Actually, I'm embarrassed that I'm associated with it, and I'm only a locations PA.  
  
After some pleading, Glorfindel reluctantly agreed to go down to the location tomorrow and have a look around to make sure things are sufficiently Vanyarish. I am suddenly worried that this movie will turn out to be more horrible than it already is. With Glorfindel in charge of quality control, there's bound to be far more female nudity and hedonistic drug use than is really necessary for a story about a revered religious figure.  
  
Relative level of insanity: too tired to tell  
Cause of insanity: probably this dumb Ingwë movie.  
  
February 14th (Melevellar)  
  
The telly was on again this morning when I got up. I think it might be haunted.  
  
Glorfindel never showed up on set today, and Maethor was furious. Someone who isn't me should try to explain to him that Glorfindel is highly unreliable and will only do things that appeal to him, and today being Melevellar, it's a given that he's going to spend the day being intimate with Aralindë. So they had to shoot some big party scene without his expertise. I didn't see any of it, but Elrohir claims he got to yell. I was standing out in the alley in a puddle of muddy water at the time, up to my knees, holding up an extension cord so that it didn't get wet and electrocute me.  
  
Needless to say I was in no mood for Melevellar festivities when we got home, but Elrohir insisted on making me supper with candles and wine and everything. He really needs a girlfriend- I am a poor substitute, and not very enthusiastic. But still he made a whole supper with chicken from a tin, instant mashed potatoes, frozen veggies, and (for some reason) Nutella. We ate surrounded by tea lights, and drank bad wine from Liquor World. Elrohir told me all about how much he loves being Fëanor. His favourite part is the costume with the fake Silmarils. His second favourite part is being able to yell a lot and get paid for it.  
  
After supper we opened the presents from Grandma. It was just as I feared. She sent Elrohir a tub of hot pink liquid latex (for "fun sexy paint-on clothing!" as the package proclaims), a set of glittery blue handcuffs, and a chocolate bum on a stick. He squealed in delight and immediately ran off to write a thank-you email. I received a red lace thong, cherry-flavoured lube, and a bag of macaroni shaped like unmentionable body parts. I couldn't think of anything decent to say in a thank-you email, so I told Elrohir to sign his email from both of us. I did email Erestor though, and told him to come by some time soon for consumer product testing.  
  
Relative level of insanity: 40%  
Cause of insanity: shamelessly hypersexual grandmother 100%  
  
February 15th  
  
The telly was on this morning too, and I know Glorfindel didn't turn it on because he didn't even come home last night. This is getting strange.  
  
Elrohir wore my new thong to work today, explaining that he needed small underwear to avoid panty lines in his Fëanor kit. I sincerely hope it turns into one of those articles of clothing he never gives back.  
  
Glorfindel actually showed up on set today, though, while I was busy crawling around behind some dirty old crates looking for an electrical outlet. Aralindë was with him. She wanted a job as an extra. Maethor took one look at her blonde hair and asked if she had any acting experience. She said yes, she was Yavanna in her school Fiommereth concert. Maethor must've though that was good enough, because he gave her a role as "adoring girl #2". She has one line, which she rehearsed with Ardlor while Glorfindel was wandering around inspecting the sets.  
  
Shooting actually wrapped early today, at four, and call isn't until noon tomorrow. To celebrate having more than 12 hours off, Elrohir and I rented a movie, The Ring. I thought it was going to be about Sauron, but it was much, much worse. Elrohir laughed at me for being scared, but then when the telly turned itself on while we were sitting on the sofa half an hour after the movie ended he screamed louder than I did.  
  
Glorfindel came running downstairs to see what all the screaming was about (he thought we were being murdered), saw the television, and said, "Oh, sorry, I forgot I had this thing on timer." He had it set to turn itself on at midnight! I asked why, but he only mumbled something incoherent and went back to bed. I was just about to tell myself that Glorfindel is even stranger than Elrohir when Elrohir asked me if I though mermaids are afraid of crabs the way that people are afraid of spiders. At that I reconsidered and confirmed that no, Elrohir is definitely stranger.  
  
Relative level of insanity: I don't even care any more.  
  
February 16th  
  
Maethor has convinced Glorfindel to be in the movie, playing the role of Finarfin. He has no lines and no action. Really, all he has to do is wear some fancy outfit and stand beside Fingolfin in the Darkening of Valinor scene and look scared and worried. That shouldn't be too difficult, because Glorfindel is terrified of the camera. He naturally looks scared and worried.  
  
Maethor has also asked Glorfindel to find him some songs for the extras to sing in the festival scene. So Glorfindel and Elrohir were in the trailer most of the day coming up with traditional Vanyarin folk songs, some of which date all the way back to early this afternoon. At first I was a bit worried that Maethor was taking advantage of Glorfindel, but now I'm convinced that he'll be getting what he deserves.  
  
February 17th  
  
The 3rd AD fired me from the movie today. She said I'm too much of a distraction because I look exactly like Elrohir and keep putting the wardrobe and makeup people into a panic when they see me walking around out of costume ten minutes before a scene is supposed to roll. Not that I mind being fired. Actually, I'm sort of glad. I didn't want to work on the movie in the first place, really. And now I can spend more time doing things that I want to do. Like checking my email.  
  
I found one from Legolas, from yesterday:  
  
-----  
From: *Legolas* legolas3000@royals.mk  
Subject: On our way!!! :)  
  
Hi Elladan!  
  
We're leaving lorien today in boats! That's soooo kewl!  
I don't go out in boats much because my dad is afraid  
of themand we don't have any boats at home. I had a  
plastic dingy once but it got a hole in it form the  
driveway and my dad couldn't even fix it with a dingy  
fixing kit from the gas station. It was for going in  
the pool only though with plastic paddles. I tried to  
use as a tent at the beach once but it fell on me and  
made the dog afraid and the dog did step on my foot  
with it's long claws! It was a black dog and very  
heavy.  
  
These are motor boats and Boromir says the motors are  
very loud. They are supposed to be fore fishing and  
Boromir says they probably smell like fish and have  
spiders in them. But that's okay because Im going in a  
boat with Gimli and he does eat spiders sometimes, I saw  
him once! It was a small brown spider that was small  
and with a white spot and had little eyes.  
  
Aragorn says he will phone you when the ring is dead!  
Bye!  
  
***LEGOLAS***  
-----  
  
Reading Legolas' emails always makes me wonder if he really thinks in sentences like that or if it just accidentally comes out this way when he's writing? He sort of talks like that too, so I'm curious.  
  
  



	6. Home for the Holidays 6

  
February 18th  
  
I got to sleep in today, since Elrohir wasn't around to wake me up. And I got to eat an entire package of bacon for breakfast, since Elrohir wasn't around to share. Then I watched morning cartoons (alright, maybe they were noon cartoons) in peace because Elrohir wasn't around to bounce on the sofa and disturb my concentration. Then I played Nintendo for a while because Elrohir wasn't around to play for me. I got to level seven on Tetris. Then I checked my email. Then suddenly it was dark out.  
  
All in all, I don't think I did anything.  
  
February 19th  
  
I tried to actually do something today. I tidied up the bedroom. Elrohir leaves his clothes lying everywhere, so there was no lack of work. We have a specially designated clothes storage unit, but for some reason Elrohir is completely incapable of using it. He just tosses his shirts on the floor or on the chairs. I think I should get him some hooks so that he can hang things randomly on the walls to keep them out of the way. He might actually like that idea too.  
  
While tidying I found a teabag among a handful of pumpkin seeds in the bottom of a box of action figures. It looked sort of old. I put it aside to throw away, but I must've forgot to do that because the next time I saw it Elrohir was using it to make bedtime tea. He didn't complain about the taste, so I didn't feel it was necessary to him where I found it. That would just make him upset. Or, more likely, proud of himself for doing something dangerous. He's still proud of himself for using a ripped sanitary paper loo-seat cover in the Caras Galadhon airport fifty years ago.  
  
February 20th  
  
Glorfindel is done with the movie. Or maybe he's just sick of having to be there every day. Either way, he stayed home today and watched a Star Trek marathon on channel 8. When it was over he whined about there being nothing better to watch, then rang the satellite company and signed up for the most expensive crap available. Someone who will probably have droopy trousers is calling round tomorrow to install it. Glorfindel just isn't happy unless he can spend a ridiculous amount of money on doing nothing.  
  
February 21st  
  
We now have about 900 channels. From what I can tell, 100 of them are foreign, 200 of them play the same crappy sitcoms and police shows we can get on regular television, 50 are movies that nobody wants to watch, another 50 are porn, 100 play round the clock amateur sports coverage from Gondor, 100 are weird specialty channels like the all-potato network or the quilter's nook, and the rest showcase a wide variety of nothing special.  
  
Three of the foreign channels are from Valmar. One is news, one is community television, and the other plays shows that I think are supposed to be sitcoms but really make no sense at all. I watched one, and all I could gather of the basic plot was that the wife had invited thirty people from her charity group over for supper and the husband was going mad trying to figure out how to feed them all. But then partway through a bunch of the actors were dressed up as ancient Noldorin soldiers, fighting over a box with a flower in it. I'm still not sure if that was part of the show or just a commercial for soap. But it lasted about ten minutes.  
  
Then back to the main plot, some Noldorin fellow had showed up, and the husband and wife kept saying the word "tulka". This appeared to be the biggest joke in the show, because the studio audience was roaring with laugher. I didn't get it. I asked Glorfindel what was going on, but he just snickered and said, "tulka." Then the show ended with the wife chasing the husband around, hitting him on the head with a broom. The credits rolled over a theme song that had absolutely nothing to do with the show's content.  
  
I didn't stick around to watch all of the variety show, which was on next and featured a host in a bad suit, a girls' football team, and some sort of endurance game where the contestants got a bucket of flour dumped on them if they failed. Honestly, I think the entire Vanyarin culture must be insane. This is even worse than television from Mirkwood.  
  
February 22nd  
  
The movie crew is moving up into the mountains to complete the shoot. They won't be back until Thursday night, when the movie wraps. And Elrohir is going with them. This means that not only am I stuck here alone with Glorfindel and Aralindë for the weekend, but also for most of next week! Without Elrohir around to distract me, who knows what I might accidentally learn about their relationship?  
  
I tried to sit outside in the front yard and read the paper for a while, but some Avarin kids kept yelling at me from across the street and asking if I was old enough to buy beer. So I went around to the back deck and read for a while, but the neighbours were burning something that gave off a peculiar scent. And since the front page story in the paper was about a rise in the population of endangered slugs in Fangorn National Park, there was really no incentive for me to stay out there. So I went back inside and pretended not to notice that Glorfindel and Aralindë were "watching" (I use the term liberally) one of the porn channels.  
  
At this point the only thing left to do was play pinball. I managed to get the high scores list all filled up with my name, except for third place which is still Elrohir.  
  
February 23rd  
  
I rang grandpa this afternoon to try to waste some time talking about begonias again, but grandma said he had gone to the hospital with stomach pains. She was fairly certain he had eaten a tainted egg. So I was forced to talk to her about the Melevellar gifts. She asked me if I'd used mine yet. I said no, but only because I've not seen much of Erestor lately. I told her Elrohir had eaten his chocolate bum, though.  
  
Then she asked to speak to Elrohir and I had to explain that he had run off with a film crew to make a made-for-telly movie about a person whose name half the actors can't even pronounce correctly. The closest they can say is "Ingui". Glorfindel spent a considerable length of time trying to explain that "Ingwë" is pronounced exactly like one would say "Ingwen", only you stop right before you get to the "N" part, but they didn't understand that. Grandma agreed that the whole scenario sounded scandalous. Then she asked when it would be on, so she could tape it. She has no integrity.  
  
February 24th  
  
I got out of bed at two today, then played four consecutive hours of pinball. I was unable to knock Elrohir's name out of third place. When Glorfindel yelled up through the hole in the floor that he and Aralindë were going out to Red Lobster, I knew it was finally safe to go downstairs. So I made some chocolate milk and pop tarts and sat and watched television. Nine hundred channels and still nothing good was on. I watched ten minutes of a nature show about lizards before I realised that Elrohir was probably counting on me to feed the iguana in his absence.  
  
I wasn't really sure how to feed an iguana, and all I could remember of Elrohir feeding it is him breaking off little pieces of a banana while the iguana sat on his stomach. So I got the iguana, got a banana, and put it on my stomach. Its claws poked me and it kept trying to walk away. I'm not sure how Elrohir can stand it.  
  
The iguana ate half the banana. I was amazed, since the iguana itself is about the size of a banana. I guess it was hungry. I probably should have fed it yesterday and the day before. But it ate and ate until it was too fat to move on its own. In hindsight, I probably should have let it sit on my stomach for an hour or two before trying to pick it up, because when I lifted it, it started wiggling and whipping its tail around. Then it sicked up. I got banana goo iguana vomit all over my sock.  
  
So then I put the iguana into a laundry hamper so it wouldn't wiggle any more and took it upstairs. I managed to get it into the cage without much more wiggling. It sat on its hot rock looking fat and lazy. I left it there and went downstairs to watch more crappy television, and when I came back up to go to bed the iguana was skinny again and there was a large poo in the corner of the cage. The iguana was scrambling at the glass trying to get out- I think it misses sitting on Elrohir's head. But no way am I taking it out again. It looks like it stepped in the poo. Elrohir can wash it when he gets back.  
  
I hope Glorfindel's been feeding the cat. It seems to like him best, and it's always in his room, so I hold him responsible for its well-being.  
  
February 25th  
  
Erestor rang and asked me to come round to the Legion for a drink with him and dad after work, so I went. I'd never been to the Legion before. And I'll probably never go again. It was full of old people drinking beer and V-8 juice and watching golf on large-screen televisions. I felt significantly out of place. I think I was the only person there who didn't have an RRSP.  
  
Dad asked me what I'd been up to. I didn't have much to say. I told him the iguana sicked up on me, which made Erestor laugh so hard he choked on his Clamato. I bet he wouldn't think it was so funny if an iguana was sick on him!  
  
Then dad ordered a pitcher of beer. The waitress wouldn't let me have any, because I didn't have my ID with me. So I had to sit and watch dad and Erestor get tipsy. When they started arguing about what colour Rohan was on the inflatable globe in the den, I knew it was time to leave. I made up an excuse about having to feed the iguana and then quickly left.  
  
As I was cutting up iguana food, this time a quarter of a banana put into an old sorbet lid to stick in the iguana cage, Aralindë asked me if I was doing anything tomorrow evening. I stupidly told the truth and said, "no". She said, "Oh goody, you can help us babysit!" The story is that her parents and a group of their neighbours are going to a conference at the Ramada on buying homes in Valinor, and nine small children will all be left in Aralindë's care for the day at one of their houses. Honestly, it sounds like a nightmare. I'll have to think of some way to weasel out of it.  
  
February 26th  
  
I tried my best at weaselling. I told Glorfindel I had a bad stomach ache (from eating a tainted egg) but he didn't believe me. I was forced to make a miraculous recovery and get into the car. We picked up Aralindë from school and drove out to the suburbs where people live in matching beige houses with bay windows and attached garages. The streets make generally no sense and are all a "way", "walk", "bay", "crescent", or "court". It took us a good twenty minutes to find number 53 Erynlas Gate. Then Aralindë and I went inside while Glorfindel hid in the car and waited for all the parents to leave. I think he's still afraid of Aralindë's dad, who threatened to do him some serious grief. Candir may own a waffle shop, but he's built like a trucker.  
  
The house was overrun by tiny Elves. One thirteen-year-old, one ten-year-old, two very small babies, and five that seemed about three or four. They all had peculiar Quenya names like Alquamárë. I asked Aralindë if it was trendy for yuppies to name their children in Quenya nowadays, and she said yes- all her friends have Quenya names, though they go by the Sindarin equivalents most of the time. So Aralindë is really Arlin, and only her parents ever call her Aralindë. And Glorfindel, but she only lets him because she thinks the way he says it is sexy. Which I did not know. I guess next time somebody rings and asks for Arlin, I'll have to remember not to tell them they have the wrong number like I've been doing all this time.  
  
The two oldest kids were easily fobbed off on video games, but the collection of four-year-olds seemed to want to do naught but climb on me. Aralindë (I can't quite convince myself to think of her as Arlin after calling her Aralindë for so long, even though Arlin is much easier to type) of course called watching the babies, who kept falling asleep. Like most females I know, she loves babies. She spent the evening cuddling the more awake of the two, cooing nonsense to it. She passed the other one on to Glorfindel.  
  
I wanted to tell her that this wasn't such a good idea, since Glorfindel has, for as long as I've known him, hated children. He used to call Elrohir and I "turd one and turd two", and dangle our heads into the toilet. Dad even has evidence of Glorfindel's cruelty preserved safely in Super-8 home movies. I clearly remember seeing one in which Elrohir and I, age one, are sitting in stew pots on the stove, wrapped neck to toe in tensor bandages and looking very frustrated. I only saw that film twice, in secret- dad refused to show it when mum was around because it made her even angrier than the one of Glorfindel tossing Elrohir, age six, into what looked like a deep snowdrift but turned out to be a mound of hard-packed snow at the Caradhras ski resort.  
  
But Glorfindel didn't look at all vicious toward these strange babies. In fact, he looked downright ecstatic. I hope this was only to suck up to Aralindë and make her feel better about the pregnancy, and not because he's decided he wants to father multiple wee terrors of his own any time soon.  
  
The evening passed uneventfully for Glorfindel and Aralindë, who sat on the sofa with sleeping babies deciding on what name they should give their own. In the car on the way home they told me they picked Elairon Almárëo for a boy and Fairien Arafindë for a girl. I was not there for the actual name-picking process, being at the time forced to play a game with the five little poofarts. The game involved me very slowly and painfully trying to climb up the stairs while they pulled at my arms and legs and hair to stop me. I can still feel their sticky little hands pawing at my clothes and hear their shrill squeals ringing in my ears.  
  
For my efforts I was paid about enough to buy myself lunch at a moderately priced restaurant. After several seconds of careful thought, I decided the crummy pay certainly wasn't adequate for the work. Babysitter wages really ought to be calculated in direct proportion to the number of four-year-olds to be sat. If I ever have kids (yeah right!) I'll have to remember to pay the sitter accordingly.  
  
February 27th  
  
Since my entire body was still sore from struggling with those little demons last night, I opted to sit on the sofa and watch television for the morning. I watched a scientific programme about the mating habits of wild animals. It inspired me to spend the afternoon conducting a scientific observation of Glorfindel and Aralindë.  
  
The Elf male starts of by bringing his mate a bowl of grapes. She smiles and gives him a kiss as a reward. Obviously some sort of mating behaviour activity focused on winning her favour, and it seems to be working. The scientific observer notes how she is now in the mood for snuggling. Confident that she will be receptive to further fooling around, the male moves on to flirtatiously playing with her hair and clothing.  
  
But wait- there is a disturbance nearby. Sensing danger, the male lifts his head and gazes around. On the street outside, some shady youths are throwing pinecones at his car. This is taken as a threat not only to his property, but also his authority and the safety of his family. In an act of defence, he rushes out to confront them by baring his teeth, waving his arms, and shouting obscene phrases. The younger specimens flee from his obvious alpha-male superiority. Satisfied that his territory is safe, he returns to his mate on the sofa. She is clearly impressed by this display of masculine power and is in the mood for further snuggling.  
  
After several minutes of affectionate flirting, the two Elves move on to a more secluded and private location to continue their pair-bonding sexual activity. Even though it is evident that the female is already pregnant, the pair continues to mate on a daily basis. Scientists speculate that this activity strengthens the bond between the two while also acting as incentive for the father to stick around and help care for the baby. They also speculates that the male in this case is simply a horny little sod.  
  
For safety reasons, our crew will not observe the mating act itself. Elves prefer to mate in private, and any intrusions are usually met with threats and ultimately violence. Additionally, it is just plain gross and this humble scientist has absolutely no desire to watch. He will, however, continue to observe the pair once they come back downstairs for food.  
  
Uh-oh, it appears as if we've been spotted. Once again the male resorts to intimidation tactics in an effort to scare away the observing scientist. He charges towar  
  
Well, at least he didn't break the computer. The scientific mind speculates that such over-the-top violence was due to the fact that he felt threatened in his home environment and was attempting to both protect and impress his mate. One can assume that if he had been observed alone in a neutral environment, as has happened many times before, he would have settled for simply half-arsedly tossing an empty cola bottle in the general direction of the scientist, instead of going for the full-out bodily attack.  
  
In conclusion, this scientist believes that much more research could potentially be done into the mating habits of Elves. The research could be made into a 12-part miniseries that aired on cable late at night. It would be a hit in Gondor. They'll watch any reality-based show down there, especially if it has to do with sex. I think I might have to borrow dad's Mini-DV camcorder and get to work on this. I could make a fortune!  
  
February 28th  
  
Elrohir got back late last night. The first thing he asked was if I remembered to feed the Iguana. I was truthfully able to tell him that I had. Ardlor was with him. Ardlor plans to stay with us until his flight back to Caras Galadhon on Sunday. I'm not really sure why he can't stay at a hotel like a normal person, since there's honestly no room here and he ended up sleeping in the fort with Elrohir and the iguana last night. I wonder if Rumil knows what he gets up to when he's off on tours and making movies?  
  
Anyway, I think we have plans to go out tonight. Ardlor wants to see some of the clubs here, and Elrohir's with that idea. And Erestor too, strangely. I think he might be up to something sneaky, because he convinced Aralindë to come with us. Of course if Aralindë goes that means Glorfindel's going to tag along too, even though he's frightened of gay clubs. I asked Erestor what he was up to, but he just grinned and said, "Nothing," so I know that means he has something in mind. ...Now that I think about it, I'm sure Elrohir is planning something too. He has a funny look in his eye. But knowing him, the plans are probably for something like making Jell-O with two different flavours of Jell-O powder mixed together.  
  
LATER: I think I have to write this down now while I remember and am still coherent enough to make angry comments. To set the scene, Elrohir and Ardlor are currently giving the iguana a bath, while Glorfindel and Aralindë are doing something unmentionable *with Erestor*! I should have known that was his plan. He's been trying to get into bed with Glorfindel for years. And since Glorfindel would never agree to something like this on his own, Erestor had to resort to sneaky tactics. I think I'll have to gloss over the whole scam from the beginning.  
  
Elrohir, Ardlor and I arrived at the club first, waiting around outside in the car park until Glorfindel and Aralindë drove up two minutes later. Glorfindel explained that Erestor had gone home to change and would be joining us soon, so we went in without him. I think Elrohir must've been in on this plan somehow too, because he immediately dragged Aralindë out onto the dance floor, leaving Glorfindel by himself at the bar to be hit on by pretty much everyone. Needless to say he was very thankful when Erestor showed up to save him.  
  
Unfortunately, Erestor then proceeded to make a scene, and his scene was loud enough so that everyone around the bar was soon under the impression that Glorfindel was his lover who ditched him in favour of some little rich girl. Glorfindel yelled back and told Erestor to stop being an idiot, but nobody seemed to be on his side. They all cheered in support of Erestor. Elrohir brought Aralindë back right on time, and Glorfindel clung to her in desperation. Erestor kept screeching.  
  
Then the inexplicable happened. While Erestor was busy sobbing on Aralindë's shoulder (rather literally) that he hoped she and Glorfindel would be very happy together now that he was miserable, she decided that she felt sorry for him. She said that she hadn't realised the two of them had a relationship, and felt awful for coming between them. So when Erestor said all he wanted was one last night with Glorfindel, she agreed! The crowd cheered. Glorfindel hollered in protest. The crowd booed. Aralindë told him not to be such an inconsiderate complainer. Erestor told her she was a very good girlfriend, and invited her to join in the festivities. She said that sounded like fun as she and Erestor dragged Glorfindel out to the car park.  
  
I was about to go after Erestor and tell him exactly what I thought about this arrangement, but Elrohir and Ardlor decided it would be better for me to join them on the dancefloor. It took all of two minutes for Ardlor to start hinting at what happened last time the three of us were at a gay disco together. It's very difficult to pretend you don't hear somebody when he's yelling in your ear. I asked him what Rumil would think of all this, but he only assured me that they have a very liberal relationship. Then he drank another Rev and spent the next half hour bouncing around with one hand on my bum and the other on Elrohir's hip. But he bought me a Rev too (something Erestor notably did not do while he was here!) so I didn't really mind.  
  
We headed home after about two hours of loud sweaty dancing and several more drinks. By this time I'd firmly made up my mind to cheat on Erestor, since he was busy cheating on me. Ardlor was very supportive of this idea and kept trying to get into my pants in the car on the way home. I've never had sex in the back of a car before, and got pretty close, but then Elrohir almost drove into the median for watching us in the rear-view mirror and the panicked near-miss ruined the moment.  
  
When we got home Aralindë was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing Glorfindel's bathrobe, drinking tea and reading the television guide. She chipperly told us that Glorfindel was being uncooperative so they had to blindfold him and fix him to the bed with Elrohir's glittery handcuffs and did Elrohir mind? All Glorfindel's screeching was giving her a headache so she was relaxing with some tea until Erestor got things under control. Then Elrohir and Ardlor and I all stood around feeling a bit dumb for a minute, until Erestor yelled down through the hole that Glorfindel was being more uncooperative than ever and Aralindë had better come back up to calm him down.  
  
I'm not too sure exactly what ruined the sexy mood, but it was probably the mental image of Erestor and Aralindë naked together. Then Elrohir lamely asked if we wanted to help him bathe the iguana, which he'd earlier in the day noticed smelled a bit dungy, and all remaining shreds of sexiness dissipated. He and Ardlor are washing the iguana now. I am sitting at the computer, frustrated at having to listen to Glorfindel's howling, Aralindë's reprimands, and Erestor's dirty comments through the wall. I think I'm beginning to understand why homicides occur. The one time I am really desperate to cheat on Erestor, and nothing is going my way!  
  
Oh wait... Elrohir just bounced in wearing the lacy red thong and the iguana on his head (only the iguana is on his head, not the thong). He put on a loud CD and is now dancing on the tyre swing and singing along with "Some Of You Boys". The music is almost loud enough to drown out the noises from the next room. Ardlor is dripping wet and smirking in the doorway. I think he gave Elrohir a bath along with the iguana. He also appears to have found the tube of cherry-flavoured personal lubricant. The night just took a turn for the better.  
  
  
  
the next day...  
Elladan is good. hes walking around in the party and doing stuff. Only Glorfindel gave thius a pot cookie and alot of alcohol so he doesnt seem to be himself.He just stopped inthe middle of the floor and is looking at his hands../now hes looking at his hair and blinking kind of a lot. I think he might be like stoned or somethin....cool.........  
  
This music is awesome......way bettr than the musict hat was here befor. whoa hittign the shift button five times in a row makse this funny thing come up that i have to click on. Oh yeah this is Elrohir because Elladan you cant write in youre computer right now/ youre to out of it. but I know you write here everyday so I htought I should do it for youor something so tomrorrow you remember at the party you threw up on my cat and missed the can.  
  
...how can you tyupe so fast, this is hard.......  
I think ELladan writes what heppens everyday so Ill do that now. today Ardlor was still here and we wante dto have this awsome party so I invited like fifty peolpel from the film and they came over to hang out. We were like drinking and sttuff and Elladn thought we would break the furninture or whatever so Ardlor gave him this drnik to make him less hyper, it was mostly rum, but the funny part was when glorfindl got him to eat this cookie that had like pot init. Me and Ardlor adn Glorfindel also ahd cookies but theyre not as stoned as Elladan, he ckeeps lloking at me... now hes yelling becase im yusing the computer. now he wants to type something- this isElladan typing...  
my brain thinks it's being stung by the orangelight  
  
cool Elldan went away now to teh bathroom again. he iS real sick maybe. hE IS GOIN GTHRU ALL THES QENya bverb conjugatines and multiplecations tables so he doenst pass out. I Should help so he doesnt die.Glorfindel can write in the compuret now./  
  
Not sure what I'm supposed to do, but this is LL watching the computer while Elrohir assists Elladan in whatever he's doing on the bathroom floor. Stupid kids can't hold their chems. Elrohir's not watching anyway so I'm just going to turn this thing off.  
  
March 2nd  
  
I am hungover. Really, really, really, really, really, really, really hungover. In fact I don't even want to be typing this right now but Elrohir said he did my daily journal entry for me last night and the curiosity/fear got the better of me so I had to read it. Not that it makes much sense.   
  
First order of business, I am going to kill Glorfindel for giving me that cookie. It made my insides feel like they were sinking. I have no idea how people can use that stuff recreationally, especially people like Aragorn who use it every day. I can honestly say that last night was the worst experience in my life. Far worse than getting accidentally locked in the change room while the rest of my highschool P.E. class went for ice cream on the last day of school.  
  
Second order of business, I am going to spend the rest of the day on the sofa. My head is still spinning and I still feel sick. Elrohir had to take Ardlor to the airport alone, since I am in no condition to leave the house. I hope he comes back soon, since he's very good at bringing me tea and egg mush and being a comforting presence now that I've firmly made up my mind not to have any further involvement with Erestor. Also he's good to lean against so that I have to put no effort whatsoever into keeping my body in a sitting position.  
  
I would ring Erestor to tell him we're through, but the cordless is all the way up in the biff and I'm far too groggy to go up there and get it.  
  
March 3rd  
  
Elrohir is the best brother in the world. Not only does he make me supper and hold my hair out of the way so it doesn't fall in my soup while I eat (still recovering from Saturday, still a bit dizzy and sick), but he also takes it upon himself to fix personal problems as well. I should get him a present. And possibly start feeling guilty for all the unkind things I've though or said about him in the past. I know my journal is full of them, and I fell a bit ashamed of it.  
  
Elrohir broke up with Erestor for me. He dressed up in my clothes, fixed his hair like mine, and went down to Erestor's office this morning for a chat. If Erestor was too thick to tell that he was talking to Elrohir and not me, then he deserves to be broken up with. I must remember to commend Elrohir for braving the stick-on labels- I would have lost my nerve. But he did it, and Erestor is now out of the picture. He says Erestor cried, and even though I don't believe that, it was kind of him to think of saying so.  
  
If I felt like getting dressed I would go downstairs and help him put up with Aragorn's friends, who converged on the house about an hour ago with something that Halbarad calls a "business proposition". I'm well aware that "business proposition" is code for "idiotic scheme", so I'm not too keen on getting involved. I think it involves our car, though, because they keep going outside and saying, "Four would fit in there for sure."  
  
Now they're hauling sleeping bags and beer coolers out to the front lawn, along with various items that I recognise from my and Elrohir's stash of camping things. I don't know what's going on, but it can only be bad. Or possibly headache-inducing. I'd better go find out.  
  
  
To be continued in "From Rohan With Love"  
  



End file.
